Find the keys yet? I bet they're in some bag or crevice in the car. I always tell myself to get Apple Airtags for my keys but then never end up doing it.

 

There's an old saying......Rank has its Privileges.

 

Hah, same here. Just haven't gotten around to it. I already lost one SL key, and they're pretty much impossible to replace. I'm not happy, even though we only need one key, having two is much better even though I'm never selling it.

It's somewhere in the house or one of the cars (it has to be), but who knows when and where it will turn up. Probably in a year or so we will find it in an obvious place.

 

I think you give way too much credit to Lexus and the Lexus LS400/430 than you do to what marketing can do. Also, you have to consider that Lexus was the last of the Japanese brands to enter the premium/luxury space in America and there had always been huge demand for Toyota's at that time and Lexus was the prefect brand at the perfect time to enter the US. Toyota cars historically have been bland and boring and the LS400/430/460 and pretty much all Lexus models until the modern era perfectly fit that stigma so marketing that speaks of hotels, how they use their cars at the shopping centre, leather puffiness is just that. Contrast to the Acura Legend at the time, the 1990 Legend the marketing speak at the time talks of 200MPH track vehicles, lightweight V6 engines that assist driver engagement and they say that the V6 is one of the most advanced and smoothest engines in the world....or the highlights of their experience in Formula One racing...or the Tochigi proving grounds...they also talk about drag coefficients of .32 for the sedan and .30 for the coupe thanks to the spoiler it has...or what about the 4 wheel double wishbone suspension of the Legend...Did you know that Acura spend 100,000 hours designing the interior? The also talk of 323 degree of outward visibility for the sedan and 320 for coupe At the end of the day its all marketing. Lexus created a pretty good brand and you have fallen for it....that brand is based on principles that you admire and want and the marketing is/was very effective at making you the consumer buy it. . Personally, I think every Lexus car from 1990-2013 was bland and boring...(but they were nice cars)

 

That wasn't an accident and also a product of engineering and marketing. F1 development began in 1983 or 84. A 1989 launch placed them in a pretty good spot-- the W126 was oollllllldddd by then, the 7 series was way more expensive and had no V8, same with Jag.

Well, Honda does have an F1 racing pedigree to be fair. .32 is very good aero for then. It's not "all marketing" but I think *some* is exaggerated like I said after more discussion. Honda also had some of the smoothest V6s, absolutely. I owned one.

 

as promised, and LOADS



ooh look, a kia and a saturn just for you.











now some others... a hideous camry with the old cloth roof on top



rebel



there's some nice euro cars in the community too...







good stuff. i had an '87 legend coupe (5 speed) and a '94 legend sedan type II gs with the nsx 6 speed stick! the super thin pillars front and back on my coupe were amazing.

every lexus? the ls400 was a benchmark in build quality and drivetrain refinement. it simply blew everything else away except maybe a rolls royce at 10x the cost.

but yes, lexus had FANTASTIC marketing... the champagne glass and ball bearing ads come to mind as 2 of the best car ads i've ever seen.

as for boring, my 2000 gs400 was not boring. especially after i modified it.

 

Thankfully we did! She stuck it in the bag with the dirty laundry.

 

It's always something stupid.

 

Yep. I can't BELIEVE I lost a Mercedes key. But there was one in a little bit better condition (you can tell it's the one that wasn't used) and that's the one that's not lost, so could be worse.

 

Yeah changing rooms is the pits, I couldn't get the unit we usually stay in for the full length of time so we had to move to a different unit for the last 2 nights and thats when stuff got all jumbled up.

 

Some loser decided to shoot a person and hold up traffic for the last 3 hours. Stopped at the grocery store and from the time I got back on the highway until I got home, it was just over two hours when normally I can make that same drive in 10 minutes.

Anyways, for a while in front of me there was a VW Vanagon. It was in great shape. Likely restored. I also saw a first gen LS400 and most impressively, an E60 M5.

 

Wow. Yeah the engines in those blew like clockwork, but they sure were screamers! I forget what the redline was but it was insane.

 

Sounds like the traffic hold up was what ruined your day.

 

well above 8000, i wanna say in the 8300 region!

they also use 10W-60 oil so you really need to be gentle for the first several minutes of a cold start, which is part of the reason those engines so regularly had major issues... pushing all that thick heavy oil through such tightly manufactured clearances would ultimately result in certain parts (namely the "wear item" rod bearings lol) overheating from not getting enough oil flow

but oh man what a time when you could get an engine like that in a car like that with a factory warranty

 

0.32 is OK. The LS400 had a Cd of 0.28. Without an obvious spoiler.