Did Lexus offer carbon fiber on the bottom of the front grille, or instead of the chrome (dark chrome) grille surrounds? JDM? Or, are those all aftermarket pieces?

 

The carbon insert on the lower front portion of the grill was a factory option for a few years (no longer offered). Since then a couple of vendors offer the same piece as a tape/stick on piece (e6 carbon, carbon addict) for about $300.

The carbon grill wrap around you see are all tape/stick on from the same two aftermarket companies. I think that piece is more like $6-800.

 

I wasn’t sure on the lower portion, so thanks for clearing that up. I’m assuming that it was offered in ‘21. I was also assuming that the wrap arounds were stick-on, but that car on Bring a Trailer has commenters asking, and someone claiming that it’s factory. I wouldn’t mind factory replacement surrounds, but I’m not big on sticking stuff onto the car’s chrome with tape.

 

I believe you are talking about this Lexus part. I added it to my 2018.

 

That seller was lying. He was repeatedly asked about the carbon grille surrounds. At first, I gave him the benefit of the doubt when he said “I’ve been told everything is factory” but you can see in the photos dropped this afternoon that he pulled off some adhesive tape remnants that were red in the original photos. At that point it would’ve been clear to anyone that those parts were aftermarket stick ons. (The weave was also different than Lexus parts, but I figured it could’ve been a bad photo.) Like I said, I gave him the benefit of the doubt until this afternoon. At this point I’ll call him a liar, as he repeated the “all original” claim after posting the new photos where that red stuff was peeled off. I believe the original photos were 22 and 44. It’s a very pretty car, but if the seller is going to lie over something small, why should I believe him that the wheels are factory color when the wording seems off? (I’m all but certain that they aren’t.) That would make a cynical person question how this 1 of 1 Canadian car came into existence, too, which I wouldn’t say if he was straight on everything else. I think the buyer still got a decent price for a good car, but let’s just say that I have questions.

 

I don’t understand how you can stick that surrounding piece on and not realize there’s a red stripe on your white car, and then take pictures of it on top of that.

 

Bingo, and it was on both sides … of the early photos. Check out the photos dropped this afternoon, and the red was gone. How was that, and how did he not get a definite answer on the part type when pulling the tape off? He also didn’t show a close up of the driver side trim in the afternoon’s dump, where the fitment was much worse than on the passenger side. Coincidence? Not to me. My friend is in the business and kept telling me “they’re a well regarded dealer, so they wouldn’t lie.” In my experience that’s exactly who lies, on occasion, because their reputation takes away doubters. Look at how many people ignored the seller ignoring the same questions. “It’s Silver Arrows so it must be legit.”

 

I always remember this old term from many decades ago, “snake oil salesman (person)”.
The auto industry has tried to clean up the image, and it is better, but the dishonest tactics are still very much alive when sales is trying to close the vehicle sale, sell warranty/finance/accessories, and later service sells unnecessary service/upsells the service often due to pressure from the manager/GM/owner to hit targets.

It’s still a “cutthroat business”.

Know your stuff…buyer BEWARE!

I owned a ‘63 SWC Corvette and a ‘67 427 coupe over a period of about 20 years.
C2 Corvettes values range vastly and escalate dramatically based on multiple characteristics including documented vehicle originality and rarity/limited production of high performance - for the time - options.
Both my cars were “frame off restored” vehicles with select but not full documentation. As a result of the less than “iron clad” documentation, I paid less than what a similarly equipped car with “iron clad”documentation would bring.
My car appeared equally as gorgeous and drove the same - rotten by today’s standards - as the higher dollar car.
My point being I suspect today’s LC500 buyer knew the wheels were refinished in bronze and the carbon grill trim was aftermarket but a winning bid at $80k (+BAT fee) was a good price for purchasing a nice appearing, well specced, and damage free 5k mile ‘21 LC500 coupe. I think it was a good price, too.

And I suggest the SELLER’s tactic to announce “No Reserve” followed a couple posts later with the “Reserve is off” was a tactic to deflect unwanted criticism, or maybe another way of saying “Buyer Beware”.

In summary, as we all know from personal ownership experience, the buyer bought one of the finest GT coupes in production today, an LC500!

 

I think he could’ve gotten another $5-$10K, maybe more, if he simply wasn’t playing games like you describe and also dodging questions. (I’ve got some inside info from a bidder on that one.) I think that number would be $20K if he pulled the listing to get full documentation that this car was exactly what he said it was. (It wasn’t. He knew.) Do you think a salesman’s time of a few hours for phone calls, and waiting another week if that’s how long it took to make them and get paperwork, aren’t worth $20K? (You think a salesman from the original Lexus dealership wouldn’t go the extra mile for an envelope with a grand in it, to help out?) I know guys who were cranking out Bentleys when the GT first came out, making money hand over fist. Between Noon and 3PM they probably had one appointment per day, and not a single one of them wouldn’t have done the work for the extra dough. This guy knew what was going on. His reserve wouldn’t have been off so early if he was sure of what he had, either. I’m not sure why this one has me angry, but I know that some bidders believed every word, just look at the comments, so I don’t know about the winner. I’ll get over it. I’ll also look extra closely at cars from that seller should they offer a car that interests me..

 

Excellent points.