Tell me how the LC250 1958 will survive after this (1 Viewer)

[Jetboy]

not to get into the weeds, and of course there was fraud and abuse (a given)

but the idea of the PPP money to businesses was to keep paying payroll. They had to keep paying the employees, instead of employees just getting fired. not all went to cars.

and there has been some high profile cases of PPP fraudsters getting caught
and it was 4+ years ago

anyway, cars are still too expensive

About 25% made it into employee paychecks. The data is unclear if it had any propensity to save jobs. The other 75% went to bank accounts of businesses who had employees. I wouldn't call it fraud. If the government says "here's free money for rich people" and they say "thanks, here's my account number to deposit the money" it's not really fraud. It's just how the program was designed to work. PPP payments are highly positively correlated with real estate purchases immediately after - specifically resort area homes. I suspect there would be an even higher correlation between PPP recipeients and new luxury car and truck purchases, but I'm not aware of any studies that match PPP reciptient addresses to new car registrations. Interestingly - I think AI could now scrape the data pretty quickly to find out. Maybe if I have some time I'll try to test a sample data set to see how many PPP recipients registered new luxury cars within the year after.

If any state publishes the data - might be interesing to look at how many LC250's were bought by PPP recipients.

Just sayin - the group of people I know who were buying new TRXs, Raptors, and similar in the last two years were all PPP recipients and flush with cash.

 

[Phillyd2]

Small business owner here who got PPP. It started as a low interest loan that we signed up for to protect our business / employees ‘just in case’ because nobody knew WTH was going on or will happen. Then they changed it to a zero interest loan, so good on us.

It was only when they changed it to forgivable when we thought WTF? Of course we applied and got to keep the money but still. Then we started to hear the stories about all of the abuse – not surprised but having such a welfare program was insane. We could have easily repaid it, especially at zero interest.

There’s really no way of really knowing how the money was spent because it just went into our bank account but we did need to provide payroll reports and show no layoffs but we could have just as easily used it for whatever we wanted.

 

[LX Cruiser]

About 25% made it into employee paychecks. The data is unclear if it had any propensity to save jobs. The other 75% went to bank accounts of businesses who had employees. I wouldn't call it fraud. If the government says "here's free money for rich people" and they say "thanks, here's my account number to deposit the money" it's not really fraud. It's just how the program was designed to work. PPP payments are highly positively correlated with real estate purchases immediately after - specifically resort area homes. I suspect there would be an even higher correlation between PPP recipeients and new luxury car and truck purchases, but I'm not aware of any studies that match PPP reciptient addresses to new car registrations. Interestingly - I think AI could now scrape the data pretty quickly to find out. Maybe if I have some time I'll try to test a sample data set to see how many PPP recipients registered new luxury cars within the year after.

If any state publishes the data - might be interesing to look at how many LC250's were bought by PPP recipients.

Just sayin - the group of people I know who were buying new TRXs, Raptors, and similar in the last two years were all PPP recipients and flush with cash.

According to Grok 3:
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There’s plenty of evidence showing fraud among recipients of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds since its rollout in 2020. The program, designed to help small businesses keep employees on payroll during the COVID-19 pandemic, disbursed around $800 billion through the Small Business Administration (SBA). But its rushed implementation and lax oversight created a playground for abuse.

The SBA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) estimated in 2023 that over $200 billion—roughly 17% of total PPP funds—may have been fraudulent. They flagged issues like identity theft, inflated payrolls, and loans to ineligible entities. By mid-2023, collaboration with agencies like the U.S. Secret Service had recovered nearly $30 billion, a fraction of the suspected losses, hinting at the scale of the problem.

Real-world cases back this up. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has prosecuted hundreds of individuals since 2020. Take Mustafa Qadiri from California—convicted in 2021 for using fake companies to snag $5 million, which he spent on luxury cars like a Ferrari. Or a Kansas City group indicted in 2023 for a $240,000 scam involving bogus applications. By early 2025, the DOJ reported recovering over $1.4 billion in misused funds, with cases still piling up.

Data analysis paints a broader picture. A 2022 study by MIT economists found that only 23% to 34% of PPP dollars actually saved jobs that would’ve been lost, suggesting much of the rest went to owners or stakeholders—some legitimately, some not. Another study from the University of San Diego in 2025 pegged 6% of $590 million in PPP funds to investment advisors as fraudulent, extrapolating to potentially $39 billion across the program. The SBA itself flagged 2.3 million loans (about $189 billion) for review by 2021, with 95% of all loans forgiven despite these red flags.

Fraudsters exploited weak controls. Lenders faced little liability, and the SBA didn’t cross-check applications with IRS data or share fraud alerts across banks in real time. This let applicants “shop” for lax lenders. Posts on X and reports like NBC’s 2022 estimate of $80 billion stolen highlight how rampant this was—think fake farms in Miami or mansions bought with “emergency” funds.
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If I had raked in some of that sweet PPP cash, I would’ve bought at least a 2010. But alas, I’m stuck with my 2009.

 

[re_guderian]

Toyota's lineup of SUVs and truck models and trim levels is SO friggin' dense, it's dizzying to compare and differentiate. They almost HAD to extended it on the lower end and strip former standard features just to have a minimum of differentiation.

 

[onemanarmy]

it could be so easy. I just don't get how so many high paid people make such dumb decisions all the time

4runner: cloth seats, small screen, mech rear locker, basic as it can be in 2025, $40k. No start/stop, lane warnings, 45 cams, or hybrid. Just a long lasting truck.
250: add some offroad tech, comforts, and bells and whistles, $50k
GX: All the bells and whistles, $60k and up

with an aluminum, timing chain, non-interferance V6 making 300HP with HD alt and HD cooling, with a tried and true 6 speed auto

lasting a long time and being easy to work on is 'green' too

 

[MRego]

They almost HAD to extended it on the lower end and strip former standard features just to have a minimum of differentiation.

Fine and correct, but they should have priced accordingly.

 

[re_guderian]

Fine and correct, but they should have priced accordingly.

Why? They're gonna sell every single one they produce. The Toyota design, marketing, and finance combined team is a juggernaut... Next time you drive down the road, candidate what percentage of cars around you are Toyotas...

 

[Jetboy]

Why? They're gonna sell every single one they produce. The Toyota design, marketing, and finance combined team is a juggernaut... Next time you drive down the road, candidate what percentage of cars around you are Toyotas...

I'm not so sure. They'll eventually sell them. But there are still plenty of LC250s that were the first delivery batch - so probably from the first transport ship from Japan - still sitting unsold on dealer lots. They're selling some. But it's not a hot seller. The rental car facility I can see out my window just added a dozen new Tacomas. I can't think of the last time I saw a Tacoma as a rental car.

 

[MRego]

Why? They're gonna sell every single one they produce. The Toyota design, marketing, and finance combined team is a juggernaut... Next time you drive down the road, candidate what percentage of cars around you are Toyotas...

I am not so sure of that. The dealerships next to me are piling up 1958s next to the Tacomas. They might sell, but not without steep discounts on the inflated MSRP. This is even before the 6th gen 4runner hits the lots with full force, hence the title of this thread.

 

[VWEeplusa]

I'm not so sure. They'll eventually sell them. But there are still plenty of LC250s that were the first delivery batch - so probably from the first transport ship from Japan - still sitting unsold on dealer lots. They're selling some. But it's not a hot seller. The rental car facility I can see out my window just added a dozen new Tacomas. I can't think of the last time I saw a Tacoma as a rental car.

All depends on your location. CA, TX, CO, etc maybe since they have that history of being Land Cruiser key markets.

But in MO, there is no inventory sitting. Allocations are uneven throughout the country and most places like St. Louis get lesser allocations and still have every one that arrives already spoken for.

Perhaps Toyota/Lexus adjusts to even markets out now that they are saturating the key markets, but I’d imagine nationwide they are selling just fine.

 

[Jetboy]

All depends on your location. CA, TX, CO, etc maybe since they have that history of being Land Cruiser key markets.

But in MO, there is no inventory sitting. Allocations are uneven throughout the country and most places like St. Louis get lesser allocations and still have every one that arrives already spoken for.

Perhaps Toyota/Lexus adjusts to even markets out now that they are saturating the key markets, but I’d imagine nationwide they are selling just fine.

I was just curious where they were. The ones sitting a long time seem to be in areas like LA, Houston, DC, Boston. There are fewer in the 300+ days on market range than there were maybe 2 months ago when I looked last. So they're moving at some level. I think the First Edition are the hardest ones to sell. $78k for an LC250 is just an unrealistic number when the GX550 Overtrail is $72. I think the FE is great. Just not $78k great. Maybe more like $55k great.

I think the Bronco is a decent analog to what I expect. In 2022 a Bronco Raptor was $70k. And Ford went nuts with MSRP on it and it now starts at $90k and most are in the high 90's. Ford slapping a giant MSRP hike didn't move the needle much or at all on the street price. A new Bronco Raptor street price is now around $72k. So it went from selling well during a bubble at MSRP and slightly above to selling around $22-24k under MSRP. I don't know if dealers are taking a bath on them, or if Ford is putting a ton of cash on the hood, but the market price hasn't moved almost at all in relationship to the MSRP change. I suspect the 4Runner market will be the same. Not sure how that will affect the LC250.

 

[BobJingles]

They sold 4900 in January in the US (think it’s LC only, not sure what the 550 numbers are). Not sure how many $60-$75k SUV other manufacturers are selling a month but seems to be selling pretty well. Especially if you take into account the abysmal 200 series monthly sales numbers, albeit the 200 was a more expensive vehicle.

 

[re_guderian]

We'll I'll be honest. There's is no car out there that "I" would pay more than 20k for. So I'll check back with y'all in 10 years

The price of new cars off the lot is INSANE relative to wages.

I haven't bought a brand new car since 2005.

 

[stonepa]

Not the PPP money for poor people. The real PPP money.

About 75% of the PPP money went to the top 20%. For example Kanye got $5M. Tom Brady got $960k. There's a TON of mid size business owners with net worths in the 10-50M range who got $500k-$1M in PPP money. That's the money I'm talking about flowing to expensive cars.

Not sure where you got these numbers but if you think people of real means (not fraudsters) waited around for PPP money to buy a $100k car you 1) obviously aren’t part of that group and 2) you don’t understand how those of us with money make decisions. PPP money was trivial.

 

[bj70bc]

 

[MRego]

Not sure where you got these numbers but if you think people of real means (not fraudsters) waited around for PPP money to buy a $100k car you 1) obviously aren’t part of that group and 2) you don’t understand how those of us with money make decisions. PPP money was trivial.

Oh please. Don’t pull the thread back to that dreaded PPP discussion. I have no idea where that came from.

 

[MRego]

Perhaps Toyota/Lexus adjusts to even markets out now that they are saturating the key markets, but I’d imagine nationwide they are selling just fine.

That may be correct, but the point of the thread is how that is going to play out when a new 6th gen 4Runner drops in for the same coin but loaded with amenities that the 1958 lacks.

Especially if you take into account the abysmal 200 series monthly sales numbers, albeit the 200 was a more expensive vehicle.

Comparing the Prado with the 200 is the insanity here. Different classes of vehicle, regardless of what Toyota tries to sell. You said yourself. The 200 was much more expensive and rightfully so.

 

[Knowbuddy]

That may be correct, but the point of the thread is how that is going to play out when a new 6th gen 4Runner drops in for the same coin but loaded with amenities that the 1958 lacks.

Comparing the Prado with the 200 is the insanity here. Different classes of vehicle, regardless of what Toyota tries to sell. You said yourself. The 200 was much more expensive and rightfully so.

You’re still whining about the 250 instead of just living your life and enjoying your 200 so it’s obviously a fair observation.

 

[Jetboy]

Not sure where you got these numbers but if you think people of real means (not fraudsters) waited around for PPP money to buy a $100k car you 1) obviously aren’t part of that group and 2) you don’t understand how those of us with money make decisions. PPP money was trivial.

The numbers are from MIT economist David Autor.

1. The spike and rapid decline in purchases tells me otherwise.

2. I'm sure you're a Paragon of excellent decisions. PPP recipients span a wide range of people. Not all of them had to buy new cars to create a spike in sales.

 

[Jetboy]

That may be correct, but the point of the thread is how that is going to play out when a new 6th gen 4Runner drops in for the same coin but loaded with amenities that the 1958 lacks.

Comparing the Prado with the 200 is the insanity here. Different classes of vehicle, regardless of what Toyota tries to sell. You said yourself. The 200 was much more expensive and rightfully so.

The 4Runner already killed the 200. If it had been offered with a v8 I don't think the 200 would have made it to the 2016 refresh. I think it may also kill the 250. They may not be the same as the 200, but they're substitutes.