Sports model has little badges on the front quarter panels that says “sport suspension”. They have a larger sway bar in the rear. Thats it. I could be wrong but the struts are the same as regular. Someone correct me.

Just for the sake of confirmation, the sport suspension came with slightly stiffer springs and bushings, thicker rear stabilizer/sway/anti-roll bar, and differently valved struts (increased rebound). Yes, the sport did come standard with the wider 245/45/18 tires on 18” rims, but those were an option on all 2004+ models without sport suspension. As Rush said, the sport models came with very discreet badging just behind the front tires that actually say “Euro Tuned Sport Suspension” and that’s going to be the easiest way to tell if it really is. I’ve never heard of a sport model that has had those badges removed. If you look at my signature, you can see where the badges are on my car - just above a strip of molding between the front tires and the front doors, and this is on both sides.

And as Jay said, a black grill was 100% definitely not a factory or even dealer installed option, at least as far as the original Lexus brochure has spelled out, as well as my 10+ years of being obsessed with and reading about these cars.

*edit: Lexus did not code options in the VIN, so without calling the dealer and having them look it up internally, you won’t know 100% for sure if the car doesn’t have the badges and you suspect it might be just about the only one that has had the badges removed.

Me either... then again, some people do really like that ‘debadged’ look, so maybe if the car doesn’t have any badges on the rear/trunk area I might look into it... but if the car has all the rest of the badges but not the sport suspension badges, I’m 99.999999% sure it’s not sport