Flooded Lexus LFA Bafflingly Sold by Insurance Company for $3K
A clerical error caused an insurance company to lose hundreds of thousands on this Lexus LFA.
The Lexus LFA ranks near the top of virtually everyone’s list of the greatest supercars ever made, largely thanks to its glorious F1-inspired naturally-aspirated 4.8-liter V10 powerplant. That’s precisely why, even after years of being ignored by the collector community, the Lexus LFA has truly soared in recent years, routinely raking in big bucks at auction. But that wasn’t the case with one particular flood damaged LFA, which was bafflingly sold by an insurance company for mere $3,300, according to YouTuber Rob Ferretti of the SuperSpeedersRob channel.
As Ferretti explains, this crazy story begins with a guy who was arrested for fraud that also happened to own a rather impressive car collection – one that included a Lexus LFA. Sadly, that car was flooded last year, and the insurance company decided that it was a total loss, interestingly enough, apparently because it was having a hard time figuring out just how much the LFA was worth.
What’s truly crazy about this story, however, is that the insurance company wound up selling the LFA – a car that cost $375,000 new and now goes for far more than that – for a mere $3,300. Heck, we can’t even buy a high-mileage beater economy car for that kind of money in today’s market, and this guy was able to buy a flood-damaged LFA for pennies on the dollar.
The owner claims that he originally purchased the car for around $550k-$600k, but when it was damaged by a flood, his insurance company wound up writing him a check for $800k. The car still drove just fine, however, making that payout one heck of a deal. At the same time, the same company assigned a buy back value of $3,300 to the LFA, which the owner happily paid and then flipped the car for somewhere around $450k, making a double profit on his original purchase.
Clearly, the insurance company made a clerical error of sorts that would normally go unnoticed, but in this case, it cost that same company hundreds of thousands of dollars. Ferretti isn’t clear where the LFA is at the moment, but it’s believed to be in Las Vegas after it was sold to an exotic rental car company. As for the profiting owner, well, he’s spent some time in jail for other types of fraud, but in this case, he was just plain lucky.
Photos: Lexus
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