TOKYO - On December 24, 2025, Lexus added a new model, the RZ600e, to its battery electric vehicle RZ series, marking the culmination of an unconventional development partnership that is challenging long-held assumptions in automotive engineering.
Behind the RZ600e’s development is Yoshihide Muroya, the pilot who became the inaugural champion of AIR RACE X, an aerial motorsport in which competitors push aircraft to their limits at speeds of up to 400 kilometers per hour and under gravitational forces reaching 12G, where split-second precision determines victory.
Lexus formed a racing team with Muroya in 2021, embarking on joint development of aircraft components with a world-class racer and refining technology under the extreme conditions of AIR RACE X, a testing ground far removed from conventional automotive proving tracks.
Yusuke Nakae of Lexus International said the collaboration has created an environment in which ideas that would not normally emerge in car development are more likely to take shape.
By applying aeronautical technologies cultivated in the skies to automobiles on the road, Lexus is opening a new chapter in the evolution of vehicles.
Muroya’s base of operations in Fukushima City serves as a research and development hub where expertise from air and land converges, bringing together specialists from different fields with the shared aim of reaching the top of the world.
In 2025, Lexus released a special edition of its LC500, the PINNACLE, whose distinctive rear wing incorporates aerodynamic principles derived from aviation.
Nakae explained that the wing’s shape resembles an aircraft wing flipped upside down, creating controlled vortices that guide airflow smoothly along the body of the car, an approach designed to enhance handling stability.
At the tips of aircraft wings are devices known as winglets, which reduce air resistance by minimizing spiral vortices generated at the wing’s edges, and Lexus engineers further refined this concept, developing a new winglet that was deployed in actual AIR RACE X competition in 2025.
The final form was the result of extensive data collection and repeated test flights, representing what both pilots and engineers described as a shared answer reached through trial and error.
Nakae noted that in air racing, differences of just one-tenth of a second can translate into gaps of several dozen meters between aircraft, but data showed that switching to the new winglet shaved fractions of a second off lap times, adding that, to their knowledge, this design exists only within their team.
Insights gained from aerodynamics have since been applied to improving vehicle handling stability, while other lessons accumulated from aviation continue to be reflected in new automotive technologies.
According to Nakae, even research into how drivers should sit to maximize human performance has been informed by studies conducted at air racing venues.
Conversely, Lexus has fed automotive expertise back into aviation, incorporating its steering concepts into aircraft control sticks, demonstrating a two-way exchange of knowledge.
This mutual transfer of ideas has raised the technical baseline on both sides.
Perhaps the most significant outcome of the partnership with Muroya, however, has been its impact on people, with engineers undergoing a noticeable shift in mindset.
Muroya said that in a constantly evolving environment like air racing, the competition becomes about who can take the next step forward, and as everyone keeps advancing, cars improve, engineers grow, and the process becomes increasingly engaging.
Nakae described Muroya’s perspective as fundamentally different from that of automotive engineers, adding that encountering such a viewpoint is both exciting and an opportunity to see things in a new way, from which fresh ideas continue to emerge.
Through the fusion of air and land, the mindset of engineers is being reshaped, and the new insights gained across disciplines are now beginning to rewrite the conventional wisdom of the automotive world.
Source: FNN
