At 50 K a pop though? Did it really cost that much to produce? If anyone has some info on production costs of the SC/Soarer line, it would be interesting to see. Highly engineered, yes, but I doubt Toyota has ever ran any model for a loss for that long of a time.

 

Besides the 2.5 Twin Turbo and the V8 parked in my drive I see a few more Soarers every day around London or the South of England.

If I go to Powerhouse (my local Soarer specialist) there will be another half dozen or more, or Smiffies Soarer Sanctuary where you will always find 3 or 5 or maybe 10 Soarers on any given day.

But on Sunday last I overdosed, 14 in one place! Battlesbridge Classic Car meet in Essex, England, see the rest of the pics here

Battlesbridge Pics

 

Thanks for all the comments guys.

Where i go to school at is not a particularly rich neighborhood. As a matter of fact, it's very similar to the ghetto near schools such as USC, Columbia or U Penn.

However, I still see quite a few SCs on daily basis (3-4 or so). These are mostly Pre 95 ones though. I guess part of it has to do with SC's low resale value, which always makes me wonder why these cars would not sell for more since they're so expensive to begin with.

For example, I can find plenty of E36 325s and M3s that sell for more than SCs in the same model year. Didn't the SCs cost a whole lot more than 325s when they were new?

Jon

 

any where from 41k to 61k.....thats michigan prices....depending on the year...

CEO

 

Here in the UK you can find sad/neglected examples of early Soarers going for as little as £2,000 which is almost scrap value, these are being bought by a younger class of owner, thankfully the rediculously high insurance rates preclude the real Boy Racers (the UK Ricer equivalent), but these cheaper cars are going to need another £2k or £2k spent on them to bring them up to scratch.

A well maintained 91/92 Soarer in good condition will be worth £3.5 / £5k depending on model/spec, you can bank on paying another £2k for insurance if your under 25 and a tank of petrol is £60 so you wont see many Ghetto owners driving a Soarer.

 

London Bill makes an great point. You can buy a beat SC 300 or 400 in the 92 to 94 range for next to nothing here in the DC area. For the patient shopper that wants a "nice" SC, you see an occasional one owner, low miles and well maintained for just a bit more. These are the steals and they do exist.

I'd be curious to hear what some of you are paying for insurance on the 400’s. SC300’s from my insurance rate checks seem to be 3 to 4 hundred dollars cheaper for insurance. With 3 cars and insurance discounts, I still pay over a grand a year, full coverage, unlimited miles for my 400. Not cheap but then, if you wanna play, you gotta pay…..

Like my wife say's (she has the GS300), boys and their toys. Yes, you can take them with you regardless of what people tell you. You just need a bigger burial plot and a much bigger hole.

 

You sound just like the Pre-Owner Sales Team up here in Austin. They have a beautiful purple(ish) SC300 on their lot right now, but that is the only one. They have sitting right next to a SC430 for crying out loud! The guys in the office agree with you, the SC400 rarely makes it way thru on a trade-in. My service writer told me that a customer of hers has both the SC400 and 430. Apparently, he couldn't part with the 400, so he kept it as his daily driver! Oh the life!

Take care.

 

I do not follow you; "low resale value?" I do not know too many auto manufacturers that can still get $12k (+/-) for a vehicle that is 10 years old and topped out at around $53k new. I bought my '95 SC400 in Nov '01 for $17,700 loaded to the gills with 67k miles on it. That's a low rate of depeciation when compared to competitive vehicles.

 

You're right.

The depreciation value you quoted for the SC may be true if you compare them to other cars' (especially domestic cars') resale value.

But if you compare the SCs' resale value to other European cars such as BMWs, the numbers don't seem to add up.

For example, if you look at avg. prices for SCs nowadays. The avg. 95's are prob. going for $12-$13k and the pre 95 ones can be had for well under $10k. A 95' BMW M3 in average condition is still selling for well more than $10k in today's market. However, the M3 was selling for less than $40k (compare to the SC's $50k+ sticker price) back in 1995.

Jon

 

i used to work at JD power & associates...after college..so i still follow some of the ratings...but i remember back in 1998...the 2 highest resale value cars were the Saturn and the Dodge viper...after 3 years they retained the most value...that was also the same year that Lincoln beat out Cadillac...in the polls...so what people see as resale value is not constant and can change from year to year. my 2 cents!

CEO

 

Good point! I also think that exclusivity of the M3 is worth a couple of grand on resale value. Not that the prices are comparable, but have you noticed that the 1995 318i and 325is BMW's are thousands less than the same model year M3? I guess supply is plenty and demand has dwindled for those lesser models.

 

Agreed. Although as of late the only scores I can remember are the vehicles with the worst resale value. Last time I looked it was the Kia Spectra with 32-33% resale value after 3 years.

 

I see over a dozen SCs a day.

 

I'm with Jayson. You just can't compare the resale value of an SC with that of an M3. Maybe a more equal comparison would be between an a pre - 95 SC VS. a 91 - 95 Acura legend coupe. Before I bought my 93 SC400, I looked at a 95 Acura Legend LS coupe. This thing had everything, even far less miles than my 93 SC, which is two years older. I could've had the Legend for 6 g's out the door. I bought my SC for $6700 which I thought, at the time, was a great deal. It now has 150,000 miles. Anyway, I've always thought of Lexus' as having a respectable resale value as I'm in the car biz. Maybe I'm wrong? ? ?

 

The M3 was just an example that I brought up to counter one of the points presented in this thread.

To take my point even further: Fine, let's not look at the M3. We'll look at the rest of the BMW 3 series to make this comparison fairer. If you search for avg. used car price on two similarly driven/kept/maintained 325s and SC4 from the same year (1993), for example, you would probably still see the BMW selling for as much as, if not more, than the SC4.

In 1993, the 325s retailed for a mere $31,000-$33,000 while the SC4 was already on its way to breaking the $45,000 barrier.

As for Acura Legends, them too, in my opinion, have no resale value. I guarantee that you will not come across a similarly maintained/driven/kept 1995 325i (which had a sticker price similar to the Acura Legend) for $6k nowadays.

Jon