If you could assemble the perfect car from parts, what would you put together? A cargo-hauling wagon body maybe, with a stout inline-six that loves boost and a manual transmission. If that sounds like your ideal enthusiast car, then you’d be well served by this absolutely gorgeous manual-swapped IS300 SportCross.
Here in the States, we never got this exact car. We got manual IS300s, and we got SportCrosses, but never the twain did meet. Conveniently, owners have taken to rectifying Lexus’s mistake by swapping over manual parts into longroof bodies for prime Jalop motoring, like this pristine example.
I’m not being hyperbolic when I say gorgeous and pristine. This Lexus has 85,000 miles on the odometer, but you’d never guess from the car’s condition. The paint looks mint, the seats look showroom-fresh. Only the scraped and reportedly “sticky” dash show that the car’s ever even left a showroom floor — and, of course, that manual shifter poking up from the console.
The seller claims the swap was performed during their ownership, but by a local Toyota tuning shop. The swap apparently uses all OEM parts, save for an ACT clutch and flywheel — a kit that I can say, from my own experience with fast manual wagons, is a blast to drive. The IS300 also has a set of Fortune Auto coilovers with Swift springs, Kosei K1 wheels, a Tanabe exhaust, and a host of aesthetic pieces borrowed from the car’s JDM twin, the Altezza.
Want the luxury-watch gauge styling of the Bugatti Tourbillon? IS300 SportCross. Need the cargo capacity of a crossover? IS300 SportCross. Looking for a car you can tinker with, tune, and get sideways out on track? My friend, look no further than this IS300 SportCross.