Leather Black On Black Sunroof Navigation on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Toyota, Lexus dominate KBB's Best Resale Value Awards

Toyota and Lexus stormed the 2014 Kelley Blue Book Best Resale Value Awards, winning a combined 18 categories including best brand and best luxury brand. This marks the third year in a row that both automakers have won the Brand and Luxury Brand resale value awards. In all, Toyota won 11 categories and Lexus won seven.
Honda made a good showing, as well, winning two segments (Accord Plug-In Hybrid and Civic Si) and putting one car on the top-10 Best Resale Value list (CR-V). Chevrolet did even better, winning two segments (with the V6 Camaro and the Corvette) and placing three cars on the top-10-overall list (again, the Camaro and Corvette, plus the Silverado 1500).
The other winners came from Jeep, Dodge, Infiniti, Subaru and Audi. To give you a clearer picture of the Toyota and Lexus domination, their 18 mentions represents more than half of the 34 awards (including the top-10-overall list).

Xcar gets Lexus LFA serviced at TMG

Toyota has made all manner of vehicles, from sedans and hatchbacks to crossovers and pickup trucks. It's even done a handful of sports cars over the years. But it's only ever done one real supercar, and that was the Lexus LFA. The ten-cylinder supercar was built at the dedicated, purpose-built LFA Works, a facility within Toyota City in Japan that's since moved on to making everything from bicycles to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. But if you were lucky enough to be among the 500 customers to get your hands on an LFA, you may not be inclined to send it back to the factory every time it needs servicing. Especially not if you live in, say, Europe. That's why Toyota Motorsport GmbH was tasked with handling service for the LFA for Europe. The facility in Cologne, Germany, was once home to the automaker's F1 team, now runs its championship-winning endurance racing team and will soon again serve as the home base for its renewed assault on the World Rally Championship. So it's just the type of facility that could handle whatever comes up with Lexus' high-strung exotic, from servicing the V10 engine to repairing the carbon-fiber chassis if need be. After checking out the underground collection in its last episode, the guys at Xcar popped their heads in at the LFA service center. There they spoke with TMG VP Rob Leupen, who seems convinced that Toyota should make a new hybrid supercar. We hope he turns out to be right.

2023 Lexus LX 600 adds a few features, higher prices

With Lexus launching the all-new LX 600 here for the 2022 model year, and the brand selling every one it can make, there isn't much changing for the 2023 model year. The base trim benefits from a heated steering wheel as standard equipment. The F-Sport Handling finally gets a crack at the exterior Nori Green Paint option, to go with its exclusive Ultra White and Black Onyx. The Ultraluxury adopts Takanoha wood as the standard trim, a Japanese specialty engraved wood. Buyers at the top will also get the option of a Sunflare interior. And thanks to customer feedback, the rear seat entertainment system will come with covers for the screens next year. That's the extent of it. Prices are up across the range as well. After the $1,345 destination charge, MSRPs for the 2023 Lexus LX 600 and their changes from 2022 are: Base: $89,160 ($915) Premium: $97,110 ($765) F Sport Handling: $103,370 ($1,025) Luxury: $105,110 ($1,165) Ultra Luxury: $129,250 ($1,905) Next year's model is up on the Lexus retail site now, but deliveries won't begin until closer to the end of the year. Motivation holds steady from the 3.4-liter twin-turbo V6 with 409 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque shifting through a 10-speed automatic and providing acceleration we called "a bit boring" because it's so effortless. Since that's the only engine available until Lexus decides to include a hybrid option, swift travel won't need much more than $89,000. We still recommend the Luxury trim for buyers out to travel swiftly in the right amount of style for the right price, and warn all to test drive the F Sport Handling on home roads before signing on the dotted. Those 22-inch F Sport rims can be felt over just about every crack, seam and expansion joint.