Likewise ...

 

i have posted my car for sale multiple times and got nothing but low ball offeres.. no one cares how well the car has been taken care of. everyone wants to pay honda prices for a real car something that 'WE" put alot of money and time into. i have had mine for 8 months and already put 4000 into it just to get it back to perfect running condition. i will not just let someone take it from me that wont appreciate the degree of the car. "WE" spend hours and hours into making everything right we dont just cheap out like you see in other counter part tuners that sell for the same price. when it comes to buying a sc its not just another car its not just another means of transportation its a commitment. idc how you look at it. if you have a 300 or a 400. these cars require love and dedication. yes we all run into problems and want to burn our cars sometimes but we hold out fix it and then remember y we love this car.

alot of people that are buying these cars dont understand them and dont see what there getting they see a cheap supra. and we all see different. they see JZ series engines and automaticly think drift and unfortunitly that fast and furious movies. which is sad cuz they see a cheaper supra..

the only thing we can do to raise the value of our cars is to not let them go cheap. hold out and the price will raise.

 

I generally agree with you, daily400. Also, the simple truth that Toyota/Lexus devalued the car by not offering it with the 1JZGTE engine it was designed for. The V8 "FE" engine wasn't the highest performing engine as we all know but that is the way it was marketed in the USA. Perhaps Toyota didn't feel that offering anything more powerful or nearly as powerful as the Supra MKIV was a wise choice but the Soarer/SC wasn't the only such car they crippled (GS series anyone?). We can also thank Mercedes-Benz, BMW and GM-Cadillac for their lobbying influence on this. Part of the situation was that the market was different in the 90's (and this included the perception of a turbocharged engine in a luxury car, sadly) and the other problem undoubtedly was the pressure on Lexus to tone down their then-superior and new products after the LS400 had taken the USA by storm. Mercedes-Benz is also the reason we have an importation exclusion of 25 years from the date of manufacture.

The most desirable Lexus SC would have been a factory 1JZ car be it automatic or manual. That would have done something to solidify the perception of market value from the time they were new. Nissan did the same thing to their 240SX for the entire model run. Would an SR20DET 240SX with US legal EGR have competed too much with the 300ZX NA and 300ZX twin turbo? Maybe, but I don't think it would have ever killed all sales of the Z. The SUV craze did that.

The reality now is that it really does come down to what the market is willing to pay for these cars. Still, regardless of what the depressed market is, I value mine with its factory style performance modifications commensurate with other cars of similar age... and of commensurate *factory* horsepower. When I say that I am referring to (on the SC side) 1JZ or 2JZGTE swapped cars, not the 225hp 2JZ-GE original engines.

I suppose many of our cars are getting up there in mileage and that is a factor but when I bought this car I found it somewhat difficult to buy a 300hp two-door RWD with a manual transmission car for much less than $8k and sometimes no less than $10k-$12k. I'm not saying that all 1JZ-R154 SC's should be valued starting at $12k because many factors come into play... but considering just how bulletproof these cars are when swapped and prepped properly alongside a GM LS1/LS2 pony car or Ford Mustang 4.6/5.0 Mod or 5.0/5.8 Pushrod car it's clearly not a Civic. There is a car that is popular, in demand and overvalued by the F&F crowd despite how crappy they are as performance car platforms.

What strikes me as funny is that nearly all other 300hp, RWD, manual transmission cars with available LSD tend to cost a good bit more than a well kept SC that has been prepped.

The used market is the used market and it's hard to argue with current market perception but for all the examples that have been thoroughly gone through and restored to the best of OEM and the best of the Supra/Soarer parts bin, these cars should be valued a bit more than they have been, again, keeping in mind the true condition of the car.

You never get back what you put in obviously but my own would not be let go for a mere $5k.

The ultra-rare versions of any car (which the Supra MKIV is as an entire model line with only 11,000 or so sold here) will always hold their higher values unlike an SC but the dirt-bottom pricing is a bit much for the sorted examples. Want some really strong value holders? Try any Mustang, Camaro, Firebird, Barracuda, Challenger or AMC from 1965-1973 or so that had a "fastback" body. The car doesn't need to have been a high performance spec car originally. It could have had an economy-focused I6 engine and an automatic transmission and still you will be paying a lot of money for any pony car that had the sportier body. More if it has been upgraded with a V8 and other bits. Even more if it was a high performance spec car to begin with. Far more than that it it was an extremely low production high performance specialty model like a Yenko Camaro, Boss 429, Shelby, etc.

Hard to compete with that and yet the most common SC available is very similar to the enthusiast as is a classic Mustang that came with an underpowered 200cid I6 engine and automatic transmission. People still buy those as all-stock restorers or as platforms to throw in more horsepower and... voila... they often hold respectable if not somewhat pricey values when all is said and done. Sometimes but not commonly the mileage is nearly as high as our cars often now have too.

Market perception...

 

This thread is retarded which means... I may as well throw my retarded opinions in too. Weeeee.....

As much as I hate to say it ***** is right, You do make a lot of pointless threads
That being said...

There are lots of people out there who know jack about cars. Look around on CL, some of the SCs here look nicer and out perform brand new production model cars.

Lots of people wouldn't be able to tell its a 13+ year old car. Look at some of the older VIP LS models. If Puff Daddy got out of one on the red carpet, most people would think it must be some new dope *** Lexus they just haven't seen yet. People are ignorant and plastic. They think new is better. I always thought if Toyota reproduced the SC with a shine style factory body, 500 whp GTE motor, LSD, with aggressive factory wheels, the car could make legend status like the Supra.

 

Buy all the SC in the market and sell 1 by 1 at ridiculously high price..

I personally like the price as it is. Even though its cheap... not many people know about the Lexus SC model which then drops the demand for these cars. High supply, low demands = cheap price.

Why do you want the price to go up anyways? Are you planning to sell your car and want to make money out of it? lol

 

I bought my SC because it was a cheap alternative to using my Supra for road racing- with a lot of parts that are backwards compatible. It may be a little fat, but I think it can be fine.

Remember that stock, these cars require much more to be competitive. From the stock engine to the drivetrain, a lot of work needs to be done to get more power reliably.

That said, I would say one of the biggest drawbacks of this car are the owners. I picked this my SC last summer hoping it was ok, but after opening up all the nooks and crannies, I realized how many problems/years of neglect and half-assery this car has. I'm at the crossroads of just selling the car and cutting my losses and getting something else altogether. Many people here are all about "stance", which doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.

 

LOL, thanks ...

Not at all; I love my SC (it's my second one!).
I just think the car deserves more; that it's very under-appreciated.
So call me an idealist, but I like this community, and I like our cars alot, so I think that given the power we have as a group, and that of social media, and networking, we should do more to make the most of what we have, however we can. Just like owning a Lexus (if you ask them) says something about the driver; I think owning an SC in particular does also. I fashion my life around how I want to be perceived (not everyone does, or has to agree, but "I do"), and like Jay Leno or anyone else, my car says something about my interests, my tastes, my sense of style, of quality, and value, etc. I think having an SC is a really special thing (as long as the owner knows it).
I mean, there was a time, when the eight-six (in America) was just this little jaloppy nobody cared about; and then some people came along and really made it something ... So to them, that car had much more meaning, and was appreciated for a variety of other reasons, which introduced it's speciality to the world; there came a renaissance. I think such a difference can be made, and should-be for the z30/z31 chassis. It's a truly revolutionary vehicle; not just some tuner-car ...
Hell, I've seen Acura Legends make the pages of more magazines than the SC300/SC400 has.
It's just ... "Wrong"

 

Yeah but the one in F&F wasn't a "featured car"; it was just some background car, racing an Accord; and that scene lasted one second only. Nobody saw it but "us".
It's not the same thing thing; it wasn't the same exposure as say: the "Eclipse" in the very beginning, or the Supra at the end, or even the friggin' "Volkswagon" that one kid had ... Pffff ... I can't believe they included that car.

 

I will say this. i have the dough to pretty much any car I want. That said, I paid under 10K for my SC and will spend another 5K or so to do it up just the way I want.

So, what new car could I buy for 15K?

Nothing I would be willing to drive.

Make sense?

 

Dont you get a special feeling while driving your sc? Like when you see it turn heads, or when people come up and compliment it and ask questions about it in parking lots? Do the a fore mentioned things make you take pride in the car? (i am now going to assume your answer is yes for the sake of finishing my post)

The awesome feeling comes from driving somethiing that the roads are not littered with. Its not a mustang or honda where theres 63573 at every intersection. The timeless look and the fact that they arent everywhere is awesome(to me) How many other stock cars from 93 will turn a head like an sc?

 

not sure why im back , but I have to ask why we as a community would want the price of our cars to go up?? I really cant think of one positive that would come out of that.

So lets say somehow, we raise the value of our cars , then what? We sell the ones we have now at a profit, then when we want to buy another one we are subject to the same inflation we caused ourself?

Used parts will then go up in price, aftermarket support and parts will skyrocket, more competition when trying to buy one on the used market, I mean its all around a horrible idea for us as SC owners and enthusiasts.

As far as im concerned the less people that know about these cars, the less demand, the lower the price, the cheaper the parts, the happier I am.

 

Wait, are you asking rhetorically, or did something I said make you think otherwise?

Yeah; I agree with everything you said, haha.
I do love that Im the only SC in the entire mall parking lot.
I do love that when I drive around, Im unique, in comparison to other cars I see several-of.
They are timeless; and it's awesome when people are attracted to it, or think it's a 2000-sumtin'.

 

 

I kinda like how the sc3/4xx prices have been driven down. Because in ten years when im old and finally tired of mine they will all be trashed by every drifter/ricer kid and mine will be pristine.

On the other end of the spectrum i attempted to sell a 97 5 speed 1 owner low miles fully dealership serviced and every lowballer in the world gave me excuses why its only worth 6k ( I LMFAO'ed all the way to park it right back into my garage) Then people go and pay 5 k for a beat auto with 150-200k and no records.

the sc market is very divided, i was offered 11k for that car 4 months prior.... only to have every loser try and lowball me when i actually wanted to sell

 

you never said anything to the contrary...that's why I assumed the answer was yes.