By now, there’s nothing to say about the Lexus LC 500 that hasn’t already been said. It’s a masterpiece, a wonderfully made, drop-dead gorgeous grand tourer that satisfies the senses and makes all the right noises. However, something strange is happening to late-model examples in the second-hand marketplace. Just when you thought auction flips of new cars were over, this Lexus we first saw nearly a decade ago is turning conventional wisdom on its head.
Outside of the absurdly rare 2021 LC 500 Inspiration Series convertible with its butterfly-inspired Structural Blue paint, the historical pattern for Lexus’ flagship GT has been one of slow yet steady depreciation. Values never fell off a cliff like they did on much of the competition, but by and large, they slowly started settling since day one to the point where you could pick up an early car for new Mustang GT money. However, a strange pattern started to emerge earlier this year for 2024 and newer examples.
See, 2024 was an important year for the LC 500 because that’s when the model finally ditched the irksome trackpad infotainment controller found on earlier models, instead adopting a quick and user-friendly touchscreen. That update ditched the CD player, brought in more physical shortcut keys, and offered a great wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto experience. At the same time, 2024 also saw updates to the sound system, tire spec, suspension, and overall tuning, making these models arguably the most desirable of the bunch. That’s not just my opinion, the market has taken notice.
If there was a singular early inkling of where things would go, it might’ve been the sale of Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer’s 2024 LC 500 cabriolet on Cars & Bids back in March. This blue-over-blue-and-white Bespoke Build car sold for $9,640 over the price on its window sticker and at the time, that would’ve been easy to write off as star appeal. Hammer prices on Bring A Trailer hadn’t quite caught up, so this very well could’ve been a complete fluke.
As it turns out, it wasn’t. Four months later, with the LC 500 officially out of production, a Nori Green bombshell dropped on Cars & Bids. This 2026 convertible with 2,700 miles on the clock had a sticker price of $119,980 when it rolled out of the showroom, but a hammer price of $157,000. According to the Carfax and the auction result, someone bought this car new, drove it for five months, and pocketed $37,020 before accounting for taxes and running costs.
Merely eight days later, a 2026 LC 500 coupe with only 699 miles on the clock hit Bring A Trailer. Spec’d in blue over blue-and-white, such a quick turnaround shows signs of financialization, a potential flip that boldly succeeded. This LC 500 may have stickered for $114,200, but it sold for $150,500. That’s $36,300 over MSRP, and this particular example marks the emergence of a pattern.
Every single 2024 or newer LC 500 successfully auctioned on Cars & Bids has sold for above its sticker price when new, along with seven out of eight successfully auctioned 2024 or newer LC 500 models on Bring A Trailer since June. Coupes, convertibles, Bespoke Build cars, regular order cars … it hasn’t mattered. The market has moved on these late cars, sometimes to huge effect.
Take a look at this 2026 LC 500 Inspiration Series convertible, identical to the press car I recently reviewed, just with a different number on its serialized console emblem. Unlike the 2021 Inspiration Series, Lexus made 550 of these 2026 cars, so they’re more than five times as common. This example was listed on Cars & Bids with only 100 miles on the clock, and at first, this $122,045 car failed to meet its reserve and sell through. However, the owner and the high bidder eventually reached a price they both agreed on: $172,500, or $50,455 over sticker price. An enormous result, but one under conditions that make it an outlier. Fortunately, similar cars have since surfaced to produce a bead on actual value.
This otherwise identical model—with the exception of a dealer-installed $25 set of key gloves—with 396 miles on the clock sold for $152,500 on Cars & Bids, or $30,430 over MSRP. Still an incredibly wild result for a mass-produced new car in an era when mass-produced new cars typically aren’t flippable, but not 50 grand up.
So why is this even possible now? Well, the LC 500 has officially done its production run, so you can’t just walk into a Lexus dealership and order a new one. That’s a significant hurdle, because if you want a reliable modern luxury grand tourer that makes a tremendous noise, a used one is now your only choice. It’s not the fastest thing on the market, but it’s wonderfully made and has an excellent track record of reliability. However, this recent red-hot 2024+ LC 500 market sucks for the rest of us who were just hoping that LC 500 prices would continue to come down, and it might drag values of older models up if this trend continues. Still, it is quite strange that the end of LC 500 production has moved the needle on the market this much. Maybe it’ll turn out like the original NSX, where we all wish we bought one when they were cheap.
Top graphic image: Bring A Trailer
Great… 🙁
I wonder if money laundering is a factor…
I think the end of them just reminded some of us they even still existed.
for that money a manual Caddy supercharged V8 would be where I plopped down the money. Though I do not hate on the LC at all, it is a great car and only just now the current generation realized it apparently.
If I could buy in that price backet, I would pick something without a Predator face.
Wait, you tell me now that I could have a GT car with a CD player AND an extended warranty? 2023 and earlier models are how much? Let’s hope they depreciate to Civic money in a hurry.
I’ve never driven one but sat in a few of them at auto shows and the build quality is immense. Truly a luxury grand tourer. I was hoping these would eventually be affordable…oh well.
They drive wonderfully <3
I am so frustrated with your ID and login process I cant even… this is the usual JohnJL logged in as a new user Bill Lambeer because I cant log in because my user is already used…but cant request new password because I’m already a member (?!?) Then “Jazel” comes in and says “I recognize you” after resetting the password. Guys, this infrastructure really sucks…no pic…terrible.
Anyway, did I just read above the RC500 came with a CD player until 2024?
Yeah, I have a similar, maybe same problem not being able to sign in on my computer (which I prefer) going back a couple months at least. If I want to comment, I have to use my phone, which I’m not a fan of using as someone who needs reading glasses and also types terribly on phones.
I have yet to see it depreciate in Canada. Every time I look, they’re over $100k. 2018’s are over $100k. There’s a 2020 coupe for $90k right now, but it has over 60k kms so that makes sense. The other 12 are well over $100k.
All these glowing articles aren’t helping matters any. Can I suggest a series of articles on how it makes random fart noises instead of beautiful V8 noises? Maybe we start talking about how the leather interior requires an unusually high number of cows? Like… 65 of them. And if you use anything but 93 octane gas, Lexus will repossess the car and replace it with a Yugo.
I don’t think that’ll work.
I have a co-worker who now has 2 of these. She bought a red convertible and then her husband liked it so much he bought a silver coupe. Both purchased lightly used before prices went wild. Well played.
Only semi-related, but a neighbor down the hill has a 2nd gen Toyota Mirai in an alarmingly deep, rich shade of what I’d normally think of as Royal Blue. It’s factory paint and not a wrap AFAICT. Is there any chance that Toyota might have used the LC 500’s Structural Blue on the Mirai for just a bit? I know it seems improbable, but that Mirai is so incredibly BLUE.
That you have actually seen a Mirai in the real world is staggering to me.
There are a couple of the 2nd gen ones (the better looking one that’s based on the Lexus LS platform) in my neighborhood: that intensely blue one and a boring metallic greyish one. I don’t see much of the first-gen ones in person lately, but they sold so few it’s not a surprise (plus, the inconvenience of having to find a gas station that can fuel it).
Since the Mirai is an electric car with a fuel cell providing power instead of a battery pack, someone must have removed the fuel cell system and put in a battery, but maybe not due to complexity and low numbers. The second gen Mirai is almost handsome, in a generic Japanese way.
A coupe in Nori Green with a brown interior is what I would choose if I had LC500 money.
Ditto!
I don’t think it’s strange the LC is going up in value, but it is a bit strange it’s happening so fast after it was discontinued.
Surely, the people desperate enough for an LC to spend $150k on one would have just ordered one during its near 10 year run?
Or are we just bagging all the museum pieces now to sell as time capsules in 10-20 years?
This is not weird but extremely normal. Check the hybrid NSX prices. People hated it and they’re like a quarter million now.
There are I believe less than 5 left unreserved of the inspiration series.
People were offering $50,000 up when we had one. Good luck finding one at this point new.
My favorite LC is the Inspiration with Structural Blue paint—which looks blue to the eye, but has no blue material in it whatsoever and utilizes the same lighting effect achieved in nature when light passes through the wings of the Morpho butterfly when they flap and a certain speed…or something like that.
It’s down to nanometre-sized structures, which are the exact size to reflect a particular wavelength of blue light, while absorbing everything else.
(Two of my lecturers at uni did some of the first research on it)
I could find five new ones at Lexus dealers within 500 miles of me, yet someone wants to pay $30k+ over sticker off of BAT?
Admittedly, the Nori Green looks pretty cool and that’s a rarer color, but still seems odd.
If you try and call to buy them, they aren’t available. It’s how third party car listings and lazy dealers manage their inventory causing it to look like reserved or sold cars are still available. There are a tiny handful still out there—not many, and less than 4 Inspiration last time I looked.
Or they have ADMs. I’ve seen new ones listed for over 200k.
Well this was a disappointing article. I was hoping that “something weird” in the LC 500 market meant that the bottom had dropped out and we could all go get one for $35K. So much for THAT!
The cheapest one I ever saw was a 2021 LC 500h the hybrid and it was white (worst color) with the ugly chrome wheels—and it was $48,000 with 40,000 miles and this was in 2023. This was with an accident on the CARFAX. I don’t know if we’ll see any more in that range any time soon.
You want the V8, though.
Yeah,I was being very facetious. There’s no way anything weird enough could happen with these cars to drop them down into a sub-50K range (or anywhere near that).
With this in mind – Perhaps Mercedes-Benz should discontinue the SL
Then dealers wouldn’t have to give them away for thousands below MSRP.
Not uncommon for the market to adjust upward after production ends. Look at some of the last Charger / Challengers that were sold.
If you cant have something you typically want it even more and will pay accordingly.
This is just like a great fishing or surf destination spot. Shut up, don’t advertise don’t brag. Don’t post shit and don’t make utubes tiktoks insta n shit online. Just dont.
No surprise here.
Key gloves? Ok, I looked at the listing and they look like one might think, something you can get for probably $10 max on Amazon or Temu or wherever and the dealer charges you $25. Sounds about right.
The LC 500 does sound wonderfully nice for those that have the big bucks to spend on buying one.
THIS IS CAR SOCIAL MEDIA’S FAULT, and while I adore this site the Autopian contributed as well. These cars were hidden gems up until a few years ago. Used ones would dip into the 50s and all of the major publications did not view them favorably. We had a real chance at an attainable dream car here.
…but then the videos started to trickle out and the comments did with them. A few “big deal” people started bringing them up on their podcasts and whatnot. The major publications started calling them forgotten gems seemingly overnight. All of a sudden prices started to climb. Ones that were sitting on dealer lots went from having discounts to having ADMs. Lexus suddenly started to do limited runs again.
…and now everyone loves the LC500 and it’s going to become yet another thing the 1% hoard to keep away from us. HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING?!?! This car could’ve been kept secret. Used ones were attainable. We had an opportunity to call them uncool and keep rich assholes away from them.
And we blew it. We let the LC500 slip through our fingers. We fumbled the baddie. We had our goth GF within arm’s reach and now she’s gone. I hope we’ve all learned from this. Now SHUT THE FUCK UP about the C8 Corvette. Thanks…
Even the CRX Si fell victim to this. I would have loved a second generation, but good ones are stupid money.
As soon as a car gets to the Dougs of the world it’s game over
It’s not too late for the CT200H. I’ll keep my mouth shut so you can buy one.
I’ve seen this with some other cars, too. Dealers can barely move them and they’re disco’d after long, trickling production runs and, six months to a year later, they’re going for over sticker or not far off. I have never understood it. What, did they all win the lottery or inherit a bunch of money just too late? Where were all these idiots when they could have bought one new, ordered it as they liked, and maybe encouraged the manufacturer to keep making them?
See my own favorite car as Exhibit A. RWD, stickshift, BMW station wagon. BMW only sold ~500 in the US (and another 100 or so in Canada) over the seven year run of the e91, most special orders (as mine was). Today, they go for STUPID money compared to the cooking AWD autotragics. Like $35K+ for a nice rarest of the rare M-Sport package car. My modestly equipped, but one-owner and low miles example is worth every bit of $25K and it’s not really depreciating anymore.
As I have said here before – I really just wanted to buy a used one, but after 3 years of looking for decently priced stickshift e39 or e91 with no luck I said to hell with it, put my big-boy pants on and ordered one new. VERY scary numbers on that paperwork for me at the time.
Wagons in general – everybody wants them now that they are gone, but didn’t want to buy them new. I bought a new stickshift Saab wagon too.
Same thing happened with the Lexus GX460 – you could get them for $10k+ off sticker when the new (current gen GX) was unveiled. Then the new GX came out, it sucked, and now the last few years of the GX460 are going for much more on the used market than you could buy them new. A 22-23 Nori Green with brown interior was peak GX.
LC50Opian?
But I agree, it is unusual to see prices leap pretty much the day production ends.