TommyJames

I asked my dealer if there were any buyer restrictions anymore and he said no as far as he knew. The link is as of August 2010, so there may be recent changes. Someone else may confirm.

LexFather

I don't think there is one way to do things. Every brand seems to have their own kind of exotic success (or not success) story.

Ferrari (Enzo) only sold cars b/c it would support his racing habit originally. His cars were being coveted but it might be the only case and well, Ferrari is Ferrari, I don't think anyone else can be like them.

So lets look at others.

Lambo-built out of anger towards Enzo. He started with nothing, no base. Ferrari races, he doesn't. Lambo to this day rarely races but is in demand and is successful.

Pagani-started with nothing, no base, car becomes successful and in demand. Car is not raced and very rare, not even sold in America.

Ford GT-sold what 40 years after the original. Sold well and the next most expensive Ford was 100k less.

Honda./Acura NSX-changed what people thought a sports car was. No prior history of a car of this magnitude. People bought it initially.

Porcshe-959 was never sold here, lost millions. CGT was their first true supercar, sold well. 918 is coming and might be a hybrid.

Luxury marques

Audi-R8/R10 had nothing like it before it, shares with Lambo, well received. Audi not known for sports cars.

BMW-no supercar on the market for decades, the M1 was an I-6. They have the sport/racing pedigree, no car.

Lexus-hardly any sport/racing pedigree, builds super-car to be halo for new "F" brand.

Jaguar-XJ220 was a marketing disaster (V-12, right here is a V-6 turbo) that performed well but the company was a disaster internally. Nothing like it since.

Mercedes Benz-SLR was a McLaren/Benz effort that got mixed reviews compared to the Enzo/CGT and never met sales goals. SLS is now produced. Amazingly Benz has built more supercars than BMW.

Maserati-MC is an Enzo clone. Highly coveted.

(Surely I have missed some others)

No real blueprint to success. What I can appreciate is all these marques making these cars.

TommyJames

This is all a very long way of saying in the value discussion that if you're will to spend _____ on depreciation and still enjoy the car, and you're satisfied with the use, you will likely do far more for the brand than if you're a customer who expected a higher number and were disappointed and bailed on the car. The less cars come up for sale, the better.

TommyJames

Great post!

LexFather

I'm also going to say I think us non-exotic owners can learn a lot from Tommy since he is an exotic car owner for sometime (and I've been to the Lambo forum and the guy is legit). While you might not agree with all his views, he has a lot of insight into the minds of exotic owners which I think is very valuable.

Its no different then when I tell someone that they haven't owned a luxury car(s) so their perceptions of things will not be the same as owners. Exotics are just on a grander scale

Please don't see that as being pompous but one of the lessons in the book "the richest man in Babylon" is

Seek advice from those who are competent through their own experiences to give it

TommyJames

The other thing interesting about this list is that it's not necessarily the car with the most to offer that wins. The Maserati is rather bare inside, yet damn expensive and it's still a very sought after car. Meanwhile the SLS has been a disaster in our market.

TommyJames

Thanks! Mike, I've only been an exotic owner since 2008. I spent a big chunk of my life broke. Finding what was really up before I got my first exotic wasn't easy and I relied heavily on forums. I want to share what I know and learn what I don't know.

TRDFantasy

I apologize if am being repetitive, but did you explicitly ask your dealer that anyone with the money can buy a remaining LFA? Or, was the dealer simply trying to pitch the LFA to you, and you assumed from that?

You are incorrect; the TV ads are not just directly marketing the car, they are marketing the Lexus brand OVERALL and raising the image of the brand.

Completely false and incorrect. As a former Honda fan, I would highly recommend you do some more research in terms of exactly what the NSX did for Honda, not just in North America, but worldwide.

Do you have 100% confirmation those cars are for dealers, and not private customers?

No it was not, you are incorrect again. Also you are making some assumptions and jumping to conclusions regarding a CL member's age and automotive knowledge when you don't even know them.

Where is the proof they are flooding the market? Under-allocating or over-allocating LFA units in certain markets is distinctly different than "flooding" the market. The fact is, there is enough demand worldwide to easily sell out every single one of the 500 LFAs being produced, and more. Your argument of demand not being high enough could possibly ONLY be applicable to the US market. Your argument does not work for the worldwide market.

Really? Ever heard of real life? Last time I checked, people still debate and discuss cars, including supercars and exotics in real life. I see exotic owners in my area do this from time to time.

So EVERY single magazine is getting "big revenue from Toyota", even the magazines that show the LFA in a negative fashion?

So now you're making assumptions and judging the fans because they can't afford the car? So exotics can only be enjoyed and appreciated by those who afford them?

You're also making assumptions now on what sort of buyers are interested in the LFA? Asking how many people here own an exotic makes you seem as if you are looking down on those that do not own one. Months ago your posts made it clear that you highly doubted anyone from outside the exotic market was interested in the LFA. You have already been proven wrong on this point, yet you continue with this argument?

To top it all off, you're also telling potential buyers or owners how they should or shouldn't research the LFA and where they should or shouldn't find information or experience about exotics. I'm not sure potential buyers or owners would agree with you.

Flame on? Wow, so now you are explicitly encouraging flaming and are baiting others into arguments?

Very well said .

Your posts have brought some much-needed sense and logic to this thread.

TommyJames

I'm not going to repeat myself again. TRDFantasy, you're just going to have to go back and do some reading and fact checking. This gets too redundant.

gengar

I agree with you that exotics are not a rational purchase nor should they be treated as such. That's why a "value" thread as concerns the LFA or any supercar is more than a bit silly. I also don't understand why supercar buyers concern themselves so much with evaluating their vehicles as investments. Anyone willing to spend $400,000+ on a car should be doing so because of their valuation of that car for the experience that such a car can provide, and experiences aren't investments.

I fully expect the LFA to depreciate on par with other exotics such as the last several generations of Ferrari models. That doesn't mean it will, but that's my expectation and something I'm perfectly fine with given my decision to purchase.


Just to clarify, the FROR I signed gives the dealership I buy the LFA from (not Lexus) the right to buy back the car at MSRP if I try to sell the car to another party at over the MSRP. I can sell the car to whomever I want as long as it's under the MSRP, and it's up to the dealership to allow it in any other case. The dealership is certainly under no obligation to buy it if I try to sell the LFA to a another party.

Certainly, the same issues exist as far as the point you're making with regard to the unreasonableness in buying with intent to flip the car.

TommyJames

Yea, but sometimes people flip down which doesn't help the market. In other words the car goes through several hands each taking a smaller hit along the way. LP640s would go through three hands in a year, each taking a $20k hit with it. Each buyer owning the car for a short period for various reasons.

The exotic owners who seem to enjoy their cars the most look at it as they would any sport such as sailing or flying. They know they will have depreciation within a given range and expenses within a given range based on a defined number of miles driven. It's very different between Lamborghini and Ferrari. A Lamborghini doesn't have the same mileage penalty as the Ferrari and it's because of used cars competing with low miles.

It's predicting the acceptable depreciation that gets tricky. Too fast and it pisses off the customer base and they don't come back to the brand. Lamborghini is learning that the hard way with the LP700 because the LP640 guys got burned.

All the Scuderias were snapped up in the Seattle area when they became available in 2008 and few owners were actually driving their cars. When the bubble burst, the cars that took the huge hit were the ones that were driven, even though most had fewer than 2,000 miles in 2010. Some two year old cars that came up in 2010 had fewer than 500 miles! When you look at that cost on a per mile basis, that's a giant hit, especially when these cars went out at $50k over sticker.

Lamborghinis have a different customer and usually have more miles because there is a slightly different buyer expectation about how the car will be used, but it's still the same problem. Lamborghini built all the market would hold and then some so they weren't charging over sticker. Still, that one guy who garages his car with no miles still sells his first while the high mile car goes last and if it's for a discount and it's competing against new, then the new car price drops and everyone gets pulled down. It creates a disincentive for others to drive their cars, which is a shame.

The problem with the LFA is that there is no customer profile history in which to know what drivers will be like, regardless of what you read here. What people say they will do and what they actually do are two different things. If dealers are buying and holding cars with no miles it will harm those who actually drive. If enough drivers are out using their cars, it actually helps all owners sustain better values.

This is where driving culture comes into play and why it's so important that the LFA culture become very active. Not just dinners but actual drives. I've been a strong advocate of all exotics getting out on the roads to help break that cycle of no mile cars harming both new sales as well as used cars.

With regard to your agreement with Lexus, I specifically asked if there were any buyer restrictions on the car and the dealer said there were none. I think it's unlikely that any exotic will appreciate anyway in this market so the point is mute.

MR_F1

I can't believe this thread has gotten to 8 pages.... really?

Maybe it's because I look at it from the perspective of a person who wants this car but currently cannot afford it.... but I think if you are spending money on a car with the sole intention of making it all back then.... why buy the car in the first place? That would be dead money to me. Normally one buys a car expecting to use the cash from it's future sale towards the purchase of a new one. I've always looked at the LFA as the car that would be parked forever next to my imaginary RUF RT-12.

Impossible. The LFA will depreciate at first, but I have no doubt that 15+ years from now, the car will sell for well over a million in today dollars.

That being said, I think the dealers "first right of refusal" will go a long was to keeping the value of the car for a while, because no dealer is going to let a fat profit slip though his fingers by allowing an LFA to be sold to a third party for much over MSRP. You just know that they will ****** it up and sell it themselves.

Pretty much.

TommyJames

I do have friends who've done nothing but make money on cars, but they never buy new, and they only buy extremely rare, and are very disciplined about price and they do tons of homework.

I'm sitting on an offer for my SV right now that is far more than I paid, but it's because it's the only one they made in this popular color for the US market and SVs are leaving the US at a rate of about one a month, and we're down to 26. I didn't plan it that way.

I don't think the LFA will ever go for anything over sticker unless they drastically cut production. The Ferrari story is only because there is a huge Ferrari exotic culture already in place. For that to even be possible you have to have a lot of existing Lexus collectors and there really isn't much in the way of Lexus collectables. Even the Reventon has fallen in value because all twenty are identical and they were not cars of performance distinction. The LFA, while a respectable performer, isn't at the top of performance chart, something the Enzo achieved and sustained for a while.

It takes very little for values on any exotic to drop. It's like stocks, one car sells cheap and auction and the others suddenly decide to cut their losses. 150 of any car in the US market is still a lot of cars in that price range so that adds considerable downward pressure, not up.

It would be wonderful for all exotics to appreciate, but to buy with that in mind, or even not tank in value as they almost always do, would be foolish. It's best to plan on 50% depreciation in three yeas with less than 10,000 miles and if resale happens to be better consider it a bonus. The very fact that cars are still available right now doesn't bode well for appreciation.

DASHOCKER

iTrader: (2)

TommyJames. I appreciate your posts as I find them very informative & enlightening. I will be the first to say thank you for your contributions and giving me & others a real world perspective of the supercar market.

jpvarghese

iTrader: (1)

This is where I will politely disagree with you. There are going to be 500 total LFAs worldwide. While total production numbers of other exotics eclipse the 1000+ unit mark many fold, this car is not like them. This is Toyota's first real modern supercar and Japan's finest at the moment.

The Reventon is a terrible example for valuation, just like the Scuderia you brought into discussion. Although they are limited in production, they are inherently an iteration of an existing, mass produced model. The exception, of course, are models with a badge with historical significance, like for example, the GTO for Ferrari, RS for Porsche, or Type R for Honda.

The LFA does not need a specific Lexus fan base for it to be appreciated or hold its value over the long term. Any "car guy" that does his homework will know how much of a milestone this car is for the brand and Japan. The cars that are available is an indication that people are weighing in the alternatives and taking into consideration the future value under the term of ownership. I would speculate that the average exotic owner is not in it for the long haul. Cars are dumped into the market before major depreciation and service hits. The LFA, priced the way it is, is preventing this type of behavior. Lexus is looking for long-term commitments and owners that clearly understand that.