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Houston repair shop disappears and takes man's Lexus with it

A man in Houston, Texas, is out his sweet new Lexus after the small-time repair shop he took it to just up and disappeared along with his car last month. According to KPRC, Randy Exom purchased a Lexus ES300 back in November and immediately took it to On Site Auto Repair in Northwest Houston to deal with some used car issues. To pay for the work, Exom set up a bi-weekly payment plan with the shop's owner. This arrangement worked out fine until January 19, when Exom showed up to make his payment and discovered that the shop had disappeared. "Everything was going fine up until I came there to make a payment and there was an eviction sign posted, sign on the door, and the regular cars that were in the lot weren't there anymore," Exom told KPRC. Eventually, he was able to reach the shop's owner to get an explanation but it wasn't the one he wanted. "I gave him a call and I said, 'Hey, there's an eviction notice here. Did you move?' He said, 'Yeah, I'm at 59 and Little York now." The fact that the owner didn't give him an exact address raised some alarms, and upon further review it seems that Exom's suspicions were justified. It turns out that the shop's owner, Shawn Gee, has a history of shady automotive dealing. Last fall, KPRC reported cases of cars going missing from a shop at 59 and Little York. That shop, which is now closed, was owned by Gee's brother. On February 10, Exom finally found his car in an impound lot with the rest of the cars from Gee's shop nearly a full month after it went missing. He told KPRC that the impound lot wants $800 to release his car. He told reporters that he wished Gee had called him and worked the situation out like a real businessman. "My thing is my car was in your possession and you should have made some type of contact with me and say, 'Hey this is what's going on, sir,'" he said. KPRC reached Gee by phone on February 10 and he declined to give an on-camera interview. He did confirm the eviction and said that he was working with customers to get their impounded vehicles back. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. News Source: KPRC Auto News Weird Car News Lexus houston impound

Toyota recalling 1.67 million vehicles worldwide in 3 campaigns

Toyota is issuing three separate recalls covering 1.67 million vehicles worldwide with most of those models in Japan. It looks like the campaigns' impact on the US may be smaller, though. According to Reuters, Toyota isn't aware of any accidents, injuries or fatalities affecting the models. Some yet-unnamed Lexus models might also be affected.
The largest of the campaigns does not currently affect any US-market vehicles. About 802,000 units of the Toyota Crown Majesta, Crown, Noah and Voxy in Japan are being repaired to replace a seal that could leak in the brake master cylinder. Those already leaking get a new brake booster, as well, according to Reuters.
The only recall currently believed to affect the US is due to a problem covering approximately 759,000 vehicles with 423,000 of them here. The repair is to fix a faulty fuel delivery pipe that could cause a fire if the fuel leaks out. Unfortunately, we don't know which models it covers. Autoblog spoke to Toyota spokesperson Mona Richard and was told the information was still "under embargo." When exactly that embargo will lift isn't yet known, but we're on the case.

Lexus LF-LC GT ready to hit Gran Turismo

Lexus might not have as rich a motorsport history as its parent company Toyota does, but it's not been without its racing activities – fielding the LFA in the VLN series at the Nurburgring and powering Daytona Prototypes in American endurance racing, but especially in Japan's own Super GT touring car series. That's where it recently rolled out the RC F GT500 is to replace the aging SC430, fighting for the championship last season right up to the bitter end. And this year it will bring a similar version of the RC F to GT3 racing as well. But before it does, the Japanese automaker has given us another racing machine to lust over – only this one is just for the virtual reality of Gran Turismo 6. Following the two teaser images that previewed its reveal, Polyphony Digital (the studio behind the Gran Turismo franchise) has revealed the new Lexus LF-LC GT. The latest in the Vision Gran Turismo series of virtual racers, the Lexus concept starts with the LF-LC show car revealed at the Detroit Auto Show back in 2012, but applies to it some of the same queues as the aforementioned RC F racer. The bodywork melds into extended aprons to keep the car glued to the digital track, there's a side-exit exhaust, carbon hood and roof, a giant rear wing, gargantuan diffuser and lightweight alloys on racing slicks. It's even got the rainbow-swirled white paint job of the RC F GT3 concept. Technical details weren't released, but then this concept wasn't designed to hit any real road or track any time in the near future, anyway. Related Video: