1995 Lexus SC400 - Lightening Strikes

Lexus is as synonymous today with "luxury" as Mercedes, BMW and Audi are. In retrospect, it's incredible that Toyota was as successful as they were in launching a luxury brand in 1989 that was an aspirational purchase right from the get to. While there were fewer luxury brands thirty years ago than there are today not to mention fewer vehicle types that could be construed as "luxury",  we only need to look at Hyundai's struggles with Genesis to appreciate how Toyota's success in establishing Lexus as a status symbol. And of all the fabulous Lexus models Toyota has launched over the years, the 1992-1996 Lexus SC was the one akin to striking me like a bolt of lightening. Especially the SC400.

A couple of weeks ago my wife saw what she described as an "old Lexus" for sale in the driveway of this big house on the "lake side" of Lake Road. While I gave her mad snaps for knowing at least it was an older Lexus, she couldn't tell me anything more about it other than it was black. Thinking it had to be an ES300 or at best an LS400, that it was any car for sale in the driveway of a home on the "money" side of Lake Road let alone a Lexus warranted a drive by after dinner to check out. Imagine my delight when I found it to be an SC and not just any SC, mind you, but an SC400. And an SC400 that appeared to be, in the deepening dusk, in extraordinarily good condition.

We honestly didn't plan on buying this car, good lord we have seven cars at the present time, but when we saw it in the daylight several days later and drove it for the better part of an hour, we couldn't not make offer. With a reasonable asking price and a mere 75,000 miles on the odometer, we settled on what we decided was a fair price with the owner. The only thing the owner disclosed was "wrong" with the car, ironically, was that the Nakamichi sound system was not working. How hard could that be to fix, right? And the "TRAC" light came on too. That had to mean something was up with the traction control system; easy stuff, right? Ha. More on that no doubt in upcoming blogs about this car.

During my time behind the wheel we hardly noticed the radio not working as we chatted away admiring the sound of the engine and the near intoxicating aroma of the twenty-four year old leather lined interior. My wife didn't say a word to me during her time behind the wheel. Ever the chatterbox, if she's quite she's either upset about something or intrigued. In this case it was the latter.

If you read vintage reviews of these cars you'd swear they were the second coming of the automobile. And in a lot of ways they were. While they certainly didn't do anything literally different than any other automobile on the market at the time or since, after all it's just a mode of transportation, what they were was as close to automotive perfection as was possible back then. Perfect in terms of combining engineering, assembly, durability and world class driving dynamics. The fact they were also beautiful to behold was the icing on the cake or chrome on the bumper - not that there has ever been any chrome on any Lexus bumper.

The darnedest thing about this car is that it doesn't photograph as magnificently as it comes across in person. Maybe it's because its black subduing its subtle beauty or the fact it has, curiously, no rear spoiler. I don't get it. When I sent pictures of it to our sons, our older son, above, who's fairly ga-ga over higher end anything and especially cars, was ambivalent towards it. Once he saw it, though, there's been no separating him from it.