As manufacturers release their monthly and quarterly sales reports for June, one fun thing to do is to look at how many “zombie” cars companies sold new this year. That is, cars that haven’t been on the market for some time that might have sold new this year.
Typically we see rare supercars like the Dodge Viper and Lexus LFA on these sales reports, the result of dealers that might have stashed them away in hopes of a big profit. But rarely do we see two cars that could be considered mainstream options on the list: the Toyota FJ Cruiser and Lexus GS.
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Even though it hasn’t been on sale in the States since 2014 or in Japan since 2017, Toyota sold a new FJ Cruiser in the US between January and June. In just the four years since the SUV was new – driving off into the sunset with a Final Edition model – the FJ Cruiser has become a cult classic. Used examples of the FJ can fetch absurd amounts of money, so one can only imagine how much that buyer had to shell out for this brand-new one.
For Lexus, the company sold a new GS between January and now. The GS isn’t as old as the FJ Cruiser, admittedly, but it’s odd to see a car that Lexus discontinued more than a year ago show up on a quarterly sales report. Although it doesn’t specify, we’d wager that this GS might have been a V8-powered F model that some dealer might have kept hidden.
As we said, we’ve seen a few of these zombie sales in the past. Dodge sold two new Vipers this year (and a Dart!), while Lexus sold three new LFAs in 2019. Dodge discontinued the Viper in 2017, while the Lexus LFA hasn’t been on the market since 2012. We’ll be curious to see what other zombie cars show up on the annual sales reports at the end of this year.