Interesting but I’ll wager it has less to do with price gouging and more to do with long term durability and part availability. Everyone has seen the Nissan GT-R fiasco. Plus there is the question of who wants to pay supercar money for an unproven Toyota / Lexus.


http://www.autoblog.com/2009/11/23/r...ercars-in-ord/

In an interesting bid to foil exotic car speculators who drive up the prices of limited-availability models, Lexus will reportedly lease – not sell – its forthcoming LFA supercar when it hits the market in January of 2011. As Automotive News reports, Lexus will only offer two-year leases of its 552-horsepower supercar at a fixed price (which has not yet been disclosed). At the conclusion of the two year period, leaseholders will get the opportunity to purchase the vehicle outright, at which point the title would be handed over. As Lexus' vice president of sales and dealer development Brian Smith tells it, his company wants "people out driving the car and not just parking it in a museum or selling it at an inflated price."

As part of the gearing-up process to sell this markedly different kind of vehicle, Lexus will also reportedly train 15 LFA specialists that will be located at the company's four regional outposts, and the Japanese automaker will also pay for dealers to receive the special tools and training that will service the vehicles.

Despite being a lease, all cars will still be individually tailored to the customer and built-to-order beginning in December of 2010.

This is certainly an interesting and potentially very clever end-around on the speculator's market. If it works, look for other exotic car companies like Ferrari
and Lamborghini to follow suit.

 

Nice!

 

Im gunna wait for Jeremy Clarksons take on it before I sign.

 

I agree, TOP GEAR is great

 

Sexy car. That whole 2 year lease thing sounds like an interesting idea. Hopefully it's made better than the GTR

 

For the $300k or whatever the price was expected to be, I'd hope it was pretty well made.

 

Ferrari does this with all of their supercars too. It's nothing too abnormal.






Except for the whole $300k for a Toyota thing...

 

They did it with one of their supercars, want to say the F50.

 

The only Ferrari I can recall was the F50, and unlike the Toyota you could buy out the lease on the F50 after 24 months.

 

Now I know i'm taking a risk posting things that involve FERRARI or READING on a forum more suited to RHD econo-boxes or the lastest Lil Wayne mix-tape but for those few enjoy.