RCF Track Editions

tomRCFcarbon · January 19, 2023

Anyone else noticed that the black and the grey Track Editions that were on AutoTrader have been withdrawn from sale? Does anyone know why this is or where they’ve gone. They almost certainly haven’t sold. So I wonder if they are going to auction? Or something else.
I was waiting for them to be steadily lowered in price before trying to do a deal. But no such luck. I’m not a big fan of the dark blue one (that’s incorrectly described as a ‘Special Edition’) that’s now on there…but if it’s the only game in town, and the price was right, I could be convinced.

B1RMA · January 19, 2023

I think describing it as a special edition is the right way forward because compared to other marques top of the range sports editions the Lexus RCF track edition is a bad joke and probably the biggest fopar any car manufacturer could make to date ( I could be wrong but I can't recall another)

Can't imagine anyone wanting to throw that sort of money at one of these when a late RCf is more than adequate.

hockeyedwards · January 19, 2023

There was a black and a grey one up for sale by a private dealer (Signature Select), they fluctuated from £80k range down into low £60k's. They then appeared in Lexus dealerships and advertised in mid £70k's. So maybe they saw an opportunity to get them back cheap and then try a quick mark up turn around(probs didn't work). They can also go back into Lexus' own car pool, so maybe being enjoyed by a few 'higher ups' in the company or used in corporate events for certain clients? Possibilities are endless! 😛

Signature Select also had an LFA at one point (White with Orange/ Tan Hide), which then made its way to Lexus Stoke on Trent - so a possible B2B relationship there?

tomRCFcarbon · January 20, 2023

13 hours ago, B1RMA said:

I think describing it as a special edition is the right way forward because compared to other marques top of the range sports editions the Lexus RCF track edition is a bad joke and probably the biggest fopar any car manufacturer could make to date ( I could be wrong but I can't recall another)

Can't imagine anyone wanting to throw that sort of money at one of these when a late RCf is more than adequate.

🥱

B1RMA · January 20, 2023

There was a thread a while back about the RCF Track Edition and I think I'm right in thinking the general consensus was negative towards the Track Edition.

My personal opinion is that it was a bad move and will always be a car that has no purpose and in my opinion never be sought after.

Put it this way that if one came up for sale even if it had the optional Carbon Ceramic discs and a similar year normal Rcf I wouldn't hesitate in buying the normal RCf even though I'm a fan of Carbon Ceramic brakes.

tomRCFcarbon · January 20, 2023

👍

hockeyedwards · January 20, 2023

@tomRCFcarbon lets start buying them up and then we can manipulate the prices 😉 😆

B1RMA · January 20, 2023

3 hours ago, hockeyedwards said:

@tomRCFcarbon lets start buying them up and then we can manipulate the prices 😉 😆

Rather you than me

DamianLEX · January 20, 2023

At the moment the cheapest RCF is £35k!
I feel tempted to put mine just below £30k to see what happens…

B1RMA · January 21, 2023

10 hours ago, DamianLEX said:

At the moment the cheapest RCF is £35k!
I feel tempted to put mine just below £30k to see what happens…

If its any help I recently had my 2017 up for sale at £39000 which I think was a good price for what it is.

I had a lot of what must have been dealers offering between £30-£35K for it, I obviously don't need to sell it for financial reasons but to all low ball offers all I would say is 'In your dreams mate' in my reply via e-mail and just say it over the phone and put the phone down.

I also had several offers to take the car to a car dealer for them to sell for you, I very nearly did this with a company near Chichester with a very Italian sounding name, when I mentioned this to a friend he advised me to not go near them.

I know we all have to make a living but car dealers at the moment seem to sell any old tat for sky high prices and no doubt big margins.

I've put mine back on Pistonheads to just see if it sells, not bothered if it does but phone calls about it from chancers and wide boys always give me a certain amount of entertainment. I know it's a perverse form of entertainment but it is fun.

DamianLEX · January 21, 2023

Actually you just reminded me selling our ex Volvo S60 back in June 2022… There was a guy asking me if there was no rust because I lived in Swansea and it was close to the salty ocean (!). I buy and sell electronic devices since 12 years and have seen thousand of chancers or other melons BUT selling a car took it to another level.

I think I’m good not to listen to this crap.

Linas.P · January 21, 2023

On 1/19/2023 at 6:18 PM, tomRCFcarbon said:

that’s incorrectly described as a ‘Special Edition’

It is actually special Fuji Speedway Edition - https://www.motor1.com/news/530914/2022-lexus-rc-f-details/

But I agree that RC-F special editions are a bit of joke, in US RC-F is priced to compete BMW 440i M-Sport, whereas in UK is costs more like BMW 840i M-Sport... honestly there is no way they going to sell, they even more expensive than LC500... no surprised they don't sell at all!

Jgtcracer · January 21, 2023

6 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

It is actually special Fuji Speedway Edition - https://www.motor1.com/news/530914/2022-lexus-rc-f-details/

But I agree that RC-F special editions are a bit of joke, in US RC-F is priced to compete BMW 440i M-Sport, whereas in UK is costs more like BMW 840i M-Sport... honestly there is no way they going to sell, they even more expensive than LC500... no surprised they don't sell at all!

I’m not sure it was sold as the ‘Fuji’ in the UK market.

All the literature I’ve see in the UK dealerships calls it a ‘track’ car.

RadicalCoupe-Fuji · January 21, 2023

They needed to go further to make it worthwhile making a track edition. Needed more power, more chassis tuning. Bolting on a load of carbon doesnt cut it. I nearly stepped on the carbon side sill, seems a bit daft.

A lot of the RCF ads on autotrader have expired, im sure the £22995 cat N write off is still unsold. Wouldnt touch that with yours.

B1RMA · January 21, 2023

I could never understand why anyone who had the money to buy the track edition car would buy it, if they had desires to go on track for the money you'd spend on one you could actually buy a decent 2017 RCF and have enough spare to buy something like I had a highly modified VX220 turbo pictured below.

It would run circles around the RCF track edition, in fact it ran circles around most things other than GT3 RS Porsches and Nissan GTR's and what's more you could insure it for very little and it included 12 track day cover in the insurance. Plus if you drove above your talent range and binned it you've not lost a fortune.

That's my take on it anyway.

Linas.P · January 21, 2023

3 hours ago, Jgtcracer said:

I’m not sure it was sold as the ‘Fuji’ in the UK market.

All the literature I’ve see in the UK dealerships calls it a ‘track’ car.

Well... it is literally Track Edition with different colour - Fuji Blue Exterior, Blue Alcantara inserts and I think Red or Orange Callipers, but as per article it is technically "Fuji Edition".

3 hours ago, RadicalCoupe-Fuji said:

A lot of the RCF ads on autotrader have expired, im sure the £22995 cat N write off is still unsold. Wouldnt touch that with yours.

Ohh... that one is horrible - I have seen it in person. At one point I wanted to trade it 1:1 to my RC200t (~£18k), but decided it was way too rough, the previous owner told me he would let it go for £16k cash privately, but even that was too much in my opinion and it seems he got even lower offers trade. I wanted to negotiate it further down, but at the time I still had not sold my RC200t and by the time I sold, he sold as well to some car trader in Birmingham area, not sure what was the price, but probably £12-14k.

It is worst repair I have ever seen, despite the original damage being quite small (just straight on front). Basically, all front is completely gutted, there are no crash bars, no foam, no liners or plastics, it was literally just new bumper and new grille hanging in the air, the front edge of the bonnet was straightened, not even painted so the paint is chipped-off, the Lexus badge just sticker, corners of headlights chipped etc. As I understand insurance has stripped the car when estimating the damage and whomever bought the car got it stripped and not replaced anything, the car meant to have ACC, but let's just say it was "deleted" for weight saving reasons.

I am not sure if any further fixing was done since the car was relisted for £23k, but there is no way it is worth that money. It think it would be decent buy for £12k track car or something like that, doesn't look like it was hurt mechanically at all, but to sort it out cosmetically it would probably be £10k.

RadicalCoupe-Fuji · January 21, 2023

I was suspicious as they dont even mention what the damage was in the advert that got it written off. Even if you find an insurance company that will insure a Cat car, the insurance will be a lot more. Even if you bought it, selling it on afterwards would be almost impossible as it will be the oldest year & it has plenty of mileage on it too.

Obviously the damage must have been pretty bad for the insurance to write off a £30k+ car & they dont even come clean in the advert.

Linas.P · January 21, 2023

It wasn't bad damage actually, guy showed me the picture, not sure what it hit, but it was straight on - basically bumper and grilled was crushed in, light mounts broken, very edge of the bonnet slightly dented, potentially radiator got damaged as well, but no structural damage. All in all, it wasn't too bad and by looks of it could have been fixed for like £5k, honestly more damage was done by people fixing it than by the accident itself. Again I am not sure on the circumstances, maybe insurance stripped the car and lost all the parts or whatever, but basically the car now ended-up uneconomical repair, because it is missing literally 1000 small pieces of trim which are hard to track, hard to find replacement for and for Lexus every piece of plastic is like £500. And I am not even talking about sourcing ACC radar and all the harnesses to connect it...

As for writing off the car - it depends on what owner wants to do, what assessment they get, if owners wants to repair the car and does not agree with insurance price, then often insurance will send car to different workshop, get's different estimate and get's the car repaired without ruining the history... If owner just wants to get the money out and often that is better option, then they write it off. To get Car-N it only needs to be ~40%+ of car value (insurance is weird on the categories and in some cases it is 40%, in some it is 60%)... so it could be combination of factors, maybe they only valued the car at £26k and maybe they said damage is £18k, which is easily possible if you use all original new Lexus parts, 50%+ means it is Cat-N... now if I am the owner and I am not happy with it - I can get my own assessor and I could get car valued at £35k and damage at £13k and got the car repaired. Insurance categories really don't mean anything - I have seen cars with scratch on the bumper in Cat-B... and I have seen cars which have rolled over and burned and still listed as Cat-N. It is completely arbitrary and insurance company can put any car on any category, generally Cat-N is when repair exceeds 50% of car value, but I have seen cars with less damage still get-it. Cat-S suppose to be "structural damage", but actually it has nothing to do with roadworthiness, most often it is just when repair cost is 75-100% of car value, Cat-B again should be for cars that cannot be repaired due to structural damage, but in reality it is given for cars where repairs exceeds 100% of car value, which is not difficult to achieve if your car is worth only £2000. On top of that other things comes into insurance costs, like recovery, storage, hire care etc. So when they see car which is worth £2000, they usually just write the check for £3500 and get rid of it without even doing assessment as could cost more than the car is worth.

ubersonic · February 18, 2023

On 1/21/2023 at 10:30 AM, Jgtcracer said:

I’m not sure it was sold as the ‘Fuji’ in the UK market.

All the literature I’ve see in the UK dealerships calls it a ‘track’ car.

I believe the Fuji name was tacked on by Lexus US for the north American market so they could sell people a slightly more premium trim version of the track edition car.

Whoever tacked it on obviously didn't know what the F stands for xD