How Much Would You Pay For This Crash-Damaged Lexus LFA?

Cast your mind back, if you can, a whole five months to March of this year, when you may have seen a Lexus LFA in a rather sorry state after it had slid off a wet road in Atlanta, Georgia and clattered a fire hydrant.

Back then, the owner, in a YouTube video with ThatDudeInBlue, explained that he was planning on repairing the car’s bodywork and the various other bits of damage that had occurred, despite an estimated cost of somewhere between £300,000 and £400,000.

That plan, it seems, didn’t work out, because the car’s now up for sale with Copart, a firm that handles the online auction of various damaged vehicles. Much like when we saw YouTuber Edmond Barseghian’s crashed McLaren Senna sitting on the premises of an LA insurance auction company earlier this year, it’s somewhat jarring seeing the one-of-500, 4.8-litre V10 Lexus lying in a scruffy lot between a Honda Civic and Toyota Camry, but that’s the way it goes.

It appears that the car’s in the exact same state it was back in March, right down to the ‘amusing’ Yoda sticker on the rear bumper, so while the car could be yours, you’ll have just as much work to do to get it back on the road as the previous owner would have.

The upside to this, of course, is price: Copart estimates the car’s retail value at $710,000, or around £540,000. The current going rate for a non-crashed LFA is between £700,000 and £1 million, so you’re likely to be getting a big discount.

Of course, unless you have a friend deep in the bowels of Toyota's upper management, then that’s going to be cancelled out by the cost of repairing it and getting it roadworthy again, but either way, this is the cheapest LFA you’re going to find in 2024. If nothing else, you could just extract that glorious V10, and carry out the most ambitious MX-5 engine swap ever.