so i picked up another project car.....

[Rob_LexusTech]

Was bored yesterday surfing fb marketplace doing my routine searches for parts and stuff when a a black on black 99 popped up on my radar. Had been up for awhile for $1200 with no title. It looked kind of rough but not too far gone. Really DID NOT need a 3rd Ls400 project as im trying to restore my 95 currently but figured if i could get it cheap enough i could part it and use the extra money for the holidays. Well i sent the guy an offer of $500 expecting a nasty response, but he returned with "yeah come get it im tired of looking it it" I thought hey this is pretty awesome but I did my due diligence called up some Wrecking companies and turns out i cant even junk it without a title, so was seriously having second thoughts. Then i called a few contacts and turns out i could get a title for $285 which would make a $785 investment that i could probably make a grand or so off so i figured why the hell not. Went over to check it out. I was alone and the car was in one of the most dangerous areas in orlando. Whole prospect of it all seemed kinda sketchy but went to look at it anyway...

i get over there and was greeted by a guy who was in his early 20s. Seemed like a nice enough dude and fully disclosed the situation with the car. Turned out to be a flip gone bad as he bought it 2 years before as a flip that had bounced around between 4 other flippers since 2014 that never registered it, yet all signed the title. He went thru all kinds of **** trying to get it registered cause he wanted to have a little fun with it before dumping it. He couldnt track down any of the people on the title, and the guy that sold it to him blocked him immediately after selling it so he knew what he was doing. Poor kid.. Anyway, i get over there and there it sat in the yard, sunk about an inch in the dirt from sitting awhile, with a few small plants sprouting from the seals. Wasnt nearly as bad as i was thinking it'd be honestly. Battery was toast and hadnt been started in about a year, so i just pulled the battery out of my 95 (drove that to go look at this sad 99), ploped it under the hood and bumped the key. After about 15 seconds of cranking it burbled to life. Ran kind of rough at first with about every warning light and message on the cluster. Trac off, check VSC, taillamp failure, low fuel, oil, coolant, auto leveling you name it lol. Interior had lots of mildew and cobwebs, but i gripped the shifter and clicked it into drive. Took a little effort to get it to unstick itself from the ground that was starting to swallow it, and down the driveway infront of his house. After a few mins the rough idle and smoke cleared up and seemed to be holding its tempature and composure so figured id take it down a few streets and see how it shifted. The tires were all mismatched, threadbare, and down to about 10 psi all the way around. Just barley enough to get to the gas station around the corner. Putted down the street. filled the tires and put $5 in gas just so it didnt run out as it was at zero miles and drove it a bit, dirt and debris comming off of it. Well, turned out that the engine was smooth and it clicked through all 5 gears perfectly.

There we were, bombing down one of the major roads in town, ducking cops with a 5 year expired tag that came from god knows where, but the car was holding its own just fine. The tranny studdered a bit probably just from sitting at first, but that went away too. I decided to open it up a little and BAM! snapped me back in my seat and.took off like a slingshot! -this Ls400 was still a good ls400!!!

Went to the bank, pulled out 5 big ones and waited for.my chase car. I drove it 15 miles home without any incident at all! So yeah. Black on black 99 ucf20 for $500. The car is just nice enough to still save but i mean its RIGHT there. Had it sat any longer it would have died in his back yard.

next ill give you a rundown of what it needs, and my future plans with it but first, i know.this thread is worthless without pics, so here we.go......

 

[Rob_LexusTech]

the drive home was pretty scary wont lie about that! as i said, the tires are nuked so it was kinda lumpy and lop sided. once i got it home the inspection began. i love the green IR glass thats on it, plus the windshield is original so its still green all the way around.

the car was FILTHY. cant tell from the pics really but it was bad. once i got it home the cleaning began...

 

[Rob_LexusTech]

okay wanted to give you guys an update about the project LS400 I rescued from a field a little while back. thing is, the more I dig into this car the more questions its raising than answers!! yes its an absolute mess under the hood. half a million miles, tons of electrical gremlins, leaks just about everything, transmission slipping BAD but it is still drivable. -this car was severely neglected for almost a decade then dumped in a field for several years. honestly there is probably NO OTHER CAR that you could get away with abusing so badly and it still start right up and take you to the end of the world and back, and it is a true testament of just how insanely well these cars are made so yeah ill say it again, way to go lexus!!, heres the thing though. this car has also revealed some serious mysteries and apparently, it may not belong on this side of the pond. ive talked with a lot of people besides myself that know a lot about these old LSs but nothing professional. however, all signs point to it being a GRAY MARKET Ls400??!! possibly a euro spec or gulf spec car, but still not sure. we were thinking it may be Canadian cause it has some Canadian-style options but it cant be. heres why.



1. speed-sensing auto locks. -we never got this option. we got lock / unlock when shifting to P & D, but not speed sensing. however, Canada did.



2. DRLs that can be turned off -custom option in Canada but never here. this isn't even custom. its actually ON THE HEADLIGHT STALK!



3. power folding mirrors. again, we never got this on the Ls400. don't think Canada did either. I really wish I had the master key and fob so I could see this feature actually worked, as well as the auto-window UP from the key fob that we never got.



4. I traced the car back via TIS, LD, carfax, autocheck, I mean every single site that would reveal where its point of origin was. if you know how and where to look, you can pull a build sheet on these cars. it will tell you the date it was built, what plant it came from, what port it came in from, what its first date of service it was, where it was sold, how many miles, etc.



5. everything is in Celsius not Fahrenheit on the center stack display, and it has a RHD ashtray, however the cluster is in MPH not KPH



so this is where it gets REALLY weird..



the car has apparently been here in Florida its whole life. was originally sold at a dealership September 1999. it even still has the little sicker in the door jam from there when it was new. however, it was built February 1999. that's a 5 month gap. one would assume it sat on the lot for a little while but that cant add up, as it was sold as a NEW CAR with almost 1500 miles on it, with NO ORIGINAL DATE OF FIRST SERVICE. so im thinking okay, possible dealer demo car or loaner? no, that wouldn't make sense either as it would still have to be tagged and insured, maybe a corporate demo? maybe a corporate test\learning car from the facility in Miramar that somehow managed to slip into normal service? some of this would show up in DMV records. the VIN is weird too. it is not listed as UCF20 in the body code, but UCF21, as an air suspension car, yet it has regular suspension nor any evidence of it ever having air suspension. I checked all the vin plates and they all match, so its not something stolen or cobbled together out of different cars. yes it was built in Tahara as they all were, yet there is no listed port of entry anywhere, or when it arrived in the states. so with no port of entry listed, and 1500 original miles unaccounted for, where did this car come from?! possibly someone bought it overseas in the military and had it shipped here? some think it might be Euro, some think Gulf, some say Canada, but its LHD so maybe from south Africa?? oh, the radio goes down to overseas frequencies that we don't have here.



I heard that there was a few cars that somehow slipped through the cracks from other places. for example, someone came here about a year ago with a 1998 Russian spec LS, to get parts from that was also kind of a freak car. could this be one of those?



sorry for the long winded post but this is kind of driving me crazy, and I love a great mystery. anyone here from corporate, that was with corporate in those days that might maybe shed some light on my very mysterious and oddball 1999 Ls400? ive had almost a dozen of these over the years but this is by far the first like this ive ever seen. I already have 3 other Ls400s in my driveway, 2 of which im trying to bring back so I don't need a 3rd project car, but thing is just too unique and cool NOT to own.