Could you possibly invite some big Toyota/Lexus executives perhaps?
LE has become basically the de facto forum for Lexus news (and it did take few years for LE to fully able to be established as one as we had ClubLexus), and we have been primarily getting all kinds of Toyota/Lexus news here first, be it from our amazing insiders or people who represent the Toyota/Lexus brand and were gracious enough to listen to our feedback and show us leaks before anyone else could see them.
I think the next step to fully elevate this forum is to bring some Toyota/Lexus executives, and maybe invite some high-profile Lexus enthusiasts! To increase outreach, launching a YouTube channel for the podcast to get more views would be great for exposure as well.
With this approach, we could start a new niche of forums where it's almost like a platform for all Toyota and Lexus fans. It's bigger and more prestigious than a typical forum site, but not as big as a social media platform. To be able to fund all of this and make it worthwhile, you can have sponsors for either the podcast or for this site.