2005 Lexus Rx330 Rebuildable Wreck Damaged Clear Title on 2040-cars

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Junkyard Gem: 1990 Lexus LS 400

Imagine you're an American Mercedes-Benz salesman during the winter of 1989-1990, looking over your inventory of majestic W126-chassis 560 SELs… and then you glance across the street at that brand-new Lexus dealership and flinch at the sight of your rivals gloating over a lot full of futuristic-looking big luxury sedans priced at less than half the cost of your top-of-the-pyramid S-Class. This was how it looked when mighty Toyota, riding high just before the popping of the Japanese asset price bubble, instantly muscled its way into the American high-end luxury-car market, and the result of that six-year, 145-billion-yen development process was the original Lexus LS. Here's one of those first-year LS 400s, used up at age 32 and residing in a Denver self-service car graveyard. Toyota had been selling reasonably luxurious rear-wheel-drive Cressidas in North America since the 1978 model year (in fact, Cressida sales would continue here through 1992), and before that we got the plush Crown. Those well-built cars were very comfortable and may have swiped a few sales from Oldsmobile or even BMW, but car shoppers here had come to associate the Toyota brand with sensible small cars and Warlord Grade trucks. Honda did very well selling luxed-up Accords and Civics with Acura badges, starting in 1986, and Toyota followed up with the Lexus brand for the LS 400 (as well as the Camry-based ES 250). In Japan, where the Toyota badge went on everything from sewing machines to the Emperor's personal Century (actually, Emperor Akihito's everyday driver was a Honda Integra sedan), there was no need for a separate luxury marque and the LS 400 was sold as the Toyota Celsior. Once the Lexus brand took off globally, however, Toyota eventually began using it for home-market vehicles. You can even buy a new Lexus bicycle in Japan today! The Cressida had a big straight-six engine, but the LS had to have a proper twin-cam V8 to do battle with the S-Class, BMW 7-Series, and Audi V8 (yes, the 7-Series didn't get a V8 until later, but the 750i had a V12). Toyota had been building aluminum-block hemi-head V8s for the Crown Eight and the Century since the middle 1960s, but that was an old-fashioned pushrod design and clearly too outdated for the LS. The LS got a 4.0-liter DOHC V8, designed from scratch just for the occasion; it had six-bolt main bearing caps and made 256 horses in the 1990 version.

Watch an Aventador, Viper and LFA play the songs of their people

Our friends at Road & Track recently stopped by Cars and Coffee in Irvine, California, with the 2013 SRT Viper and found themselves a place to park between a Lamborghini Aventador and a Lexus LFA. Those machines might as well be the three musketeers of ludicrous exhaust notes, and rather than keep those 24 raging cylinders muffled, R&T set about conducting an orchestra of internal combustion. On seeing these three lined up, we were more than prepared to call the Viper victorious when it came to tickling our ear drums, but the latest domestic V10 sounds down right civilized in this company.
If we're picking favorites, we have to say the LFA takes the cake. There's something about the noise of a street-legal V10 that can wrap it's tachometer all the way to 9,000 rpm that turns our knees to quivering dollops of jelly. Check out the clip below for a listen. We shouldn't need to tell you to get frisky with the volume.

2015 Lexus RC 300h is a hardcore hybrid cherry coupe

Lexus is tag-teaming back into the hardcore coupe ring with this, the red rum RC 300h that's jumping off the top rope to "[inject] emotional appeal into the Lexus DNA." It's the hybrid version of the twin, powered by a 2.5-liter V6 aided by a 105-kW electric motor, the pair putting out 217 total horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque through a continuously variable transmission. The RC's other, more conventional half will come with a 3.5-liter V6 with 314 hp and 380 lb-ft shifted with an eight-speed sequential transmission.
The brand doesn't want you to take this RC Coupe for a two-door version of the IS. It's based on the GS platform but its dimensions are unique, being wider, lower and shorter in wheelbase than the IS. Concept-car headlights flank the most extreme version of the spindle grille yet seen on a production car, and the lighting novelty continuing in the cabin with illumination that is aimed up instead of down. The package will ride on either 18- or 19-inch wheels.
The "high contrast," dual-zone cabin is graced with shimamoku wood and Lexus' Remote Touch Interface, and Lexus says the seats have been conceived via an "integrated foaming construction method" like racing seats - we think they look spectacular stitched up in this carmel-colored leather.