Toyota’s Lexus SC stood out when it was first released, but its nearly two-decade-long lifespan came to a close for a variety of reasons.
Growing up, my family always had larger vehicles. First, it was a minivan, but after that, there was a steady stream of SUVs, including models like the Acura MDX. However, there was one big shift that came in the early 2000s, and that was when my mother decided she wanted a small, exciting convertible for her next car. That ended up being a white Lexus SC 430, which we enjoyed for a good many years. To this day, I consider it to be the most beautiful vehicle ever owned by a member of my family, including myself. However, if you were to head to your local Lexus dealership, you would not find any new Lexus SC models on the lot. In fact, it has not been in production since the 2010 model year after a nearly two-decade-long lifespan.
Lexus has discontinued a shockingly few amount of models over the course of its existence, so when it decides to stop making one, it’s something of a big deal. Of course, the company will rarely ever come out and plainly state exactly why a certain model is sent to a farm upstate, leaving us to wildly speculate as to the reasoning, and that is exactly what we are going to be doing. Let’s look back at the Lexus SC and see what exactly made it such a loved vehicle by myself and others, and of course, we’ll try to understand why its production ceased.
[Featured image by IFCAR via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | Public Domain]What was the Lexus SC?
The Lexus SC was introduced all the way back for the 1992 model year, just a couple of years after the company was founded as the luxury arm of Toyota. It was actually the second Lexus model that ever hit the market after the mid-size ES executive car. These may just seem like random letters, but the naming convention for Lexus vehicles is actually rather simple. In the case of the SC, the S stands for Sport, and the C stands for Coupé. What followed the SC would be a three-digit number to indicate what kind of engine it had. Initially, there were the SC 300 and 400 options, with the former having a 3.0L I6 and the latter having a 4.0L V8. Regardless of which model you got, this was a two-door coupé.
For the 2001 model year, Lexus decided to ditch the different engine options for the SC, and instead, the newly named SC 430 came standard with a 4.3L V8 under the hood, able to generate 300 hp and 325 lb.
