Finboy buys a Lexus LX570
Overview - TLDR I bought a truck
Back in 2017ish my wife told me she wasn’t onboard with the idea of vanlife for camping, and buying a 4x4 ambulance was a dumb idea. Tent camping is rough, and really cuts down the window for us because of our frigid shoulder seasons. Eventually we would need a trailer setup for camping with our dogs, a $40k investment that I definitely did not have the funds for. Tent life would continue.
Being that our current vehicles were a Kia Rondo and a clapped out Acura 1.6 EL, I knew it was going to be a longer term goal, and research was needed. Discovering Ih8mud.com and expedition portal to see what would hold up, I started researching the venerable Land Cruiser and LX series, and found that they were engineered and manufactured for a lifespan of 25 years…in a third world country. I also saw the price tag, and that ideal camping setup shifted down the priority list after replacing our vehicles, buying a house, and making an effort to retire before 80.
Over the years, we sold the unreliable cars, bought a house, bought more unreliable cars (hello Subaru), and wound up with a Sienna AWD (which took 6 months to find a decent one). It was at this point where I bought into the hype of Toyota Tax and started considering how I would get out of Subaru before I soured on owning a timebomb. This setup worked *okay* for tent camping, but was never ideal, and more dogs were added to the equation. Over this time I kept researching lx570’s to learn everything I could about them, even driving Zipdoa’s LX470 to get a feel for the hydraulic suspension. The LX470 was good, but the 100 series were getting a bit longer in the tooth and still pricey for the 6 speed model. In my research, I found a colour I loved, it reminded me of my first car I learned to drive on, then I found out production numbers.
Let’s address the Elephant in the room, the average Lexus owner is likely pushing 70+. They aren’t really known for exciting or out there taste, Lexus offers some cool colours (see rage2’s pumpkin RC-F) but the near-octogenarians won’t buy them. 95% or more of the Lexus used market fall into the category of white, black, grey, alternate grey, or Jewish racing gold. A burgundy colour was offered, but by far the most rare was Costa Azul Mica, only offered in 2008-2010 with under 150 units shipped to North America. Factor in the preferred dark interior (cream ain’t staying clean), and you are looking at under 40 units, or 0.1% of the LX570 production run. In Canada there were 9, 4 of which were in Alberta. Like I said, Blue is too exciting to drive to the country club.
The first I saw one on ih8mud classifieds in 2019, stateside of course, with cream interior. Price was waaaay out of my budget, so I followed the thread until it sold, and went back to the drawing board. More years passed, Covid prices went insane on all cars and I sold my Subaru for every dollar I had into it, no blown motors, no nuked trannies, and bought my Element to camp and get back and forth for snowboarding. I still thought I might some day be able to afford the LX, but that was going to take a lot more post-covid price cooling. https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/200...ained.1118950/
In 2021 I did see a Costa Azul Mica LX570 pop up in Central Alberta for $26k, almost no pictures and disappeared pretty quick. Fast forward a couple weeks and I see (what I assume) was the same truck in Calgary while driving through traffic. I tried chasing it down to see give the owner a thumbs up, perhaps see if they would ever sell, but traffic didn’t make that a reality. So close, but so far! Another painful reminder of what could have been, the hunt continued.
In 2023, The Element was getting long in the tooth, rolling over 300,000km’s and my wife’s Sienna hit 280,000 km’s. The same week my alternator died, my wife’s car got a check engine light, I came to the realization that I need to get some more reliability in our fleet. She can’t drive stick, and there is no way 4 dogs are fitting in the element. With this reality staring me in the face, I got back into my various nation-wide searches, looking for any LX 570’s as covid prices had mellowed and we were finally in a spot where we could buy something reliable , albeit maybe not the colour I wanted. Finally one of my searches yielded a result, another Costa Azul Mica with low mileage….but Ontario. It had a claimed 115,000Km’s at a shady dealership, and no undercarriage photos for $35k (so much for covid prices cooling). Considering the lack of photos, I had to do some sleuthing, go full csi enhance on the crappy photos, rust was clearly visible on any metal surface in the engine bay……uuuuugh. Swing and a miss, not touching it with a ten foot pole, rust + hydraulic suspension? Nooooo shot.
It’s about this point where I realized I did have a bit of an ace up my sleeve in the Beyond community. Everyone knows Redlyne_mr2 is the go to Toyota source, and someone who has always been helpful in the 20+ years I’ve been on Beyond. I have great memories of bugging him on MSN Messenger for hours to learn everything about SW20’s, following his amazing builds from 1m’s to 355’s, always catching up at car shows, and even catching laps at Lake Louise when running into him on closing day. Ryan has always been someone to spare me some time and is a great representation of the importance of a strong community. I thought it best to reach out and see if he could help me find an LX. I reached out and found he was actually very well versed in the LX570 as he went to the launch event as a sales rep. As he said in this thread: https://forums.beyond.ca/threads/207...ebec?p=2311086
Also notice that there is a Costal Azul Mica in the demo fleet photos
I scrolled through his Instagram to see what was in his impeccable fleet of cars currently, and found out he had a winter car he picked up in 2022.Originally posted by Redlyn_mr2
LX is insane... for $89000 all in it's tough to beat, the truck is soo smooth and soo soft it feels like an LS sedan. It was great to compare it to other SUV's on an offroad course, you really see how bad some SUV's are.
A Lexus LX570….in Costa Azul Mica.
I was floored, I let him know I was interested, if he ever wanted to sell I would take it. A couple weeks later, he reached out letting me knowing he was putting it back to stock (thank god, I don’t have a volk te37 budget) and now this is mine:
Ryan kept it in great shape like all his vehicles, and he gave me a great deal on it (best price in western Canada). Thanks a ton Ryan, 6 years of research and the Beyond.ca community comes through again.
Soooooo planned mods:
- Grom Audio apple carplay conversion
- SS3 fog lights (Springbank to Kananaskis needs it on those 6AM drives to the hill)
- 33” falken wildpeaks
- Possible 2013-2015 taillight conversion (piecing together, not cheap)
- De-chrome (but not black out)
- LC200 roof rack to replace the LX rack
The Element is sold, I will miss the manual transmission and easy parallel parking, it was the first time I took a car over 300,000 km’s but time to move on.
Subaru Thread Here - https://forums.beyond.ca/threads/407...t-build)/page2
Element Thread Here - https://forums.beyond.ca/threads/414...peed?p=5158311
Quote
Originally Posted by Yolobimmer
