“Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken” feels like the defining motto around the Lexus GX SUV. To put things in perspective, in the 19 years after the first one launched, we saw more all-new Popes than all-new GX SUVs. So, when the brand announced the all-new 2024 Lexus GX 550, it felt like a special occasion. This right-sized body-on-frame SUV has attracted legions of off-road fans for years, and now that we’re seeing the new vehicle, it seems like Lexus finally has received the memo and pulled the GX out from the Land Cruiser’s (LX’s) shadows.
By leaning into its heritage, this new SUV is likely to thrill existing GX fans and win over owners of a certain British SUV marque — particularly ones who feel cast aside by that brand’s current product line. After all, the GX 550 doesn’t just feature similar full-frame construction as the dearly-departed LR4, it leans into rugged, blocky looks while the current Discovery went a bit blobby. What are the odds that Land Rover is having a really bad day right now? God this thing looks good.
While the previous-generation GX needed to toe the line between rugged looks and suburban sensibility due to the lack of a three-row Lexus crossover when it was launched, the incoming Lexus TX lets the new GX pull off its mask and expose its Land Cruiser Prado roots. From its flat, upright windshield to its squared-off tail, the new GX is proud of its body-on-frame construction – an anomaly in today’s world of predominantly unibody luxury SUVs.
I’m a huge fan of the simple vents in the body-colored valence below the trimmed-back spindle grille, as they exude retro vibes and a certain honesty that complements the muscular flared wheel arches.
Swing-gate: Be Gone
Around back, owners of current GX models will likely be thrilled to see the change from a swing-out tailgate to a standard power liftgate. Not only was the old setup heavy, it also swung the wrong way for street parking in left-hand-drive countries. While a liftgate may present a problem in constricted spaces, Lexus has thought of this by including separately-opening rear glass that requires less space to swing up than a full tailgate. It’s perfect for loading and unloading small items, and it includes a convenient handle in the rear wiper arm bezel. [Editor’s Note: I still think more luxury SUVs should have drop-down tailgates. -DT].
Clearance Approved
The new Lexus GX is 3.74 inches to 4.52 inches wider than the outgoing model and rides on a 2.36-inch longer wheelbase, thanks in part to the same TNGA-F body-on-frame platform that also underpins the LX 600. Despite boasting an extra 2.75 inches in overall length over the outgoing model, front overhang has been reduced by 0.78 inches for the sake of ride height. Although Lexus doesn’t list ground clearance, the new GX carries approach, breakover, and departure angles of 26 degrees, 23 degrees, and 23 degrees in its base form. Off-road-focused Overtrail trims increase breakover angle to 24 degrees but cut departure angle to 22 degrees, while Luxury trims cut departure angle to 21 degrees. Both Overtrail and Luxury trims retain the same 26-degree approach angle as the base model, so forward clearance should be consistent no matter which trim you choose.
While those figures just can’t catch the Land Rover Defender 110, they are relatively competitive with a Land Rover Discovery’s standard-height approach and departure angles of 26 degrees and 24.8 degrees. Of course, the Discovery also offers air suspension that can seriously jack up ride height, improving key angles immensely. The flip-side to this is that air suspension often comes with high repair costs as components naturally wear out over time. More importantly, the new GX offers useful improvements over the old model’s 21-degree approach, 21-degree breakover, and 23-degree departure angles (depending on trim). An extra five degrees of approach angle might not sound like much, but it can be the difference between clearing an obstacle and ripping the front bumper off.
Inner Sanctum
Moving to the cockpit of the new GX, Lexus seems to have prioritized ease-of-use with this interior. The driver controls the gearbox through a conventional shifter; there’s a huge button for the exterior camera system to better assess terrain; the glovebox door uses a conventional release; and I don’t spy a capacitive-touch button anywhere. It adds up to a cabin that won’t alienate Lexus traditionalists, but still takes things into the 2020s with recent tech and artful design.
Standard is a 14-inch touchscreen infotainment system running Lexus’ latest software paired with a 10-speaker sound system, although a 21-speaker Mark Levinson sound system is available and it promises to bump. Prior Lexus experience suggests that you want to go for the Mark Levinson system, as it’s typically a considerable upgrade over the base sound system. Sure, you could keep things cheap and cheerful, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are also both standard, as is a 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster for all your virtual instrumentation needs.
Of course, being a Lexus, you can load the new GX up to the gills. Heated and ventilated front seats are standard, heated second-row seats are optional, and the second-row bench can be replaced by captain’s chairs if you tick the right option box. If the thought of having to drop the third row manually seems exhausting, the wayback can be motorized for convenience, and you customers can spec a digital key option to unlock the GX using their phones. You can even option the GX with a little mini-fridge for all your adventuring needs, although it’s yet to be seen which trim levels will carry that option.
As for general interior design, it’s aesthetically rugged, yet refined at the same time. The upright dashboard with its relatively flat top offers a hit of nostalgia, but details like the wood-inlaid phone holster and satin metallic trim are lovely enough for discerning luxury shoppers to appreciate. Although stitched materials feature heavily on the console and door cards, Lexus doesn’t seem shy to use tightly-grained plastics on the dashboard to bring out a sense of ruggedness. In an overlanding favorite like this, I’m okay with well-used plastics as they’re easy to clean and require minimal maintenance compared to leather or textile. Consider it built to last.
Stock Lockers And Two Meaty Turbos
Power in the new Lexus GX comes from the V35A-FTS 3.4-liter twin-turbocharged V6 out of the Toyota Tundra. This force-fed six is good for 349 horsepower and 479 lb.-ft. of torque, a handy boost over the outgoing model. If that’s not quite right for you, Lexus pinky promises that a hybrid variant is coming down the line.
Every Lexus GX 550 comes with a ten-speed automatic gearbox and full-time four-wheel-drive with a locking Torsen center differential, but the Overtrail and Overtrail+ trims get an electronically-locking rear differential for added traction in slippery conditions. Those Overtrail trims also get 33-inch all-terrain tires, which are certifiably bitchin’. Look, I don’t make the rules, but luxury SUVs on all-terrain tires are just cooler than those that aren’t. The Overtrail trims also get promising off-road assist systems including various terrain modes, hill descent control, terrain monitoring, and Lexus’ clever KDSS suspension system that can effectively disengage the anti-roll bars under severe wheel travel to give you extra articulation when you need it most. Speaking of rear suspension, Lexus doesn’t mention whether the GX uses a live axle or independent rear suspension, but zooming in on a high-res press shot appears to show a coil-sprung solid rear axle. It all adds up to some intriguing capability.
Terrific Towing
Speaking of capability, let’s talk towing capacity. The new Lexus GX can pull a strong 8,000 pounds on Premium, Premium+, Overtrail, and Overtrail+ trims, more than a Porsche Cayenne or Land Rover Discovery. That drops to 6,990 pounds on the Luxury trim and 6,780 pounds on the Luxury+ trim, but that’s still enough to safely tow a car, or a well-sized camper.
The New GX Finally Looks Cool Enough To Justify The Pricetag
The GX has always been one of my favorite Lexus vehicles, but it always stood in the Land Cruiser’s shadows and seemed a bit compromised for its underpinnings. Its body-on-frame packaging repelled those looking for a car-like driving experience, but a low-hanging front fascia on the outgoing model limited stock off-road clearance. The new Lexus GX 550, though, has more power, practicality, and capability than ever before; more importantly, it looks incredible, and is now firmly out the LX’s shadows. It’s only a matter of time before we start seeing these things out on the trails; expect pricing to be released closer to January of 2024, when the first examples complete the long trip from Japan to showrooms across America.
(Photo credits: Lexus)
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This is decidedly not a segment I play in, but I’m genuinely impressed by how good it looks. Like, really good.
I second that this should be a split-tailgate situation. Not only are they fun and useful (and at what I’m going to imagine is an average sale price of around 90k, they should be able to absorb that cost) but when you have a tailgate this tall, opening it requires a massive amount of space. Even wealthy people have limited garage length. Though I’m sure some people appreciate the hatch canopy effect.
The styling looks good (in the beige color, not the dark gray) except for the rear. This looks like it has an ass within an ass, the rear end version of the face within a face front end.
I guess Lexus got the “inspiration” (i.e. blatant plagiarism) from Mercedes-Benz GLB…
I absolutely love it, and am sad there really isn’t a space for a car like this in my family right now. Like someone else said, almost an instant classic as far as looks. The way Toyota’s been lately I would skip the first year model though.
So they went with a lift rather than a split tailgate…fine. I don’t mind the barn door, and I feel like none of the automotive press ever has a problem with barn doors on Wranglers or Defenders. But if you’re going with a lift-gate, Why not do a power window that slides down like the 4Runner?! That is the one thing I (and my dog) wish our GX had. I feel like this is a missed opportunity, even if it meant for a more slab-sided rear. Lift glass is fine but I can’t drive with it open.
The nice thing about the barn door that is often overlooked is if you have long storage boxes or rack items they can be at or go over the rear door. With the liftvgate nope. I have a 5th gen 4Runner and my Dad has the GX470, for creative ‘racking’ the GX with a barn door is a better option.
The best implementation of the Lexus “spindle” grille so far? It needed to be tightened up, simplified and slightly toned down. Compare this to the weird *object* (towel warmer? ladder? Donald Judd sculpture?) that’s currently stuck to the front of the LX and they’ve come a long way. Question is whether this just a black swan, a glitch in the Lexus Design regiment or this is a sign of things to come.
I would argue that they should be leading the way with an efficient hybrid drivetrain that has the oomph, but I absolutely applaud them sending off ICE engines in a top shelf offroader. This thing looks retro future in a good way, I dig it.
But seriously, make the hybrid.
So, while looking for the wind tunnel, the techs got lost and parked in Resident Evil’s Laser room instead.
The lasers managed to get it a horizontal and a vertical pass for a crew cut, but dulled and didn’t make it past the grille when they turned to mesh mode.
Paint it assorted greys, and you might think they made off with a Compainion Cube.
They gave the spindle legs! Now all she needs is a head and arms.
The flashy chrome peach fuzz has matured into a fine dark moustache. It does look stoic about the first 10 years of life in parking lots, but the third owner will give it a fun 100,000 – 500,000 miles.
Land Rover design and capability with Toyota reliability? Sign me up! Oooooooooh but. This thing is going to have a truly irresponsible gasoline habit, and in 2023 we all know better. I hope that hybrid they’re promising is a plug-in.
Please make it a plug-in.
This looks like a future classic. Rugged proportions and details but not all ANGRY AND AGGRESSIVE, solid powerplant, lexus quality, locking diffs, huge towing capacity….. 20 years from now I have a feeling they’ll still be rolling around with 300k miles and fairly high prices despite getting crap MPG. And the old ones, while having a lot of nice atttributes, were always so dog ass slow, the engine in this seems like it has great specs. The styling is perfect, the gaping maw is finally toned down and on it’s way out (thank god).
Cheers to Lexus, they nailed this one imho.
Why does it look like there is a cheap plastic patch panel underneath the reverse light? Almost like the tail light is supposed to be 5x bigger but then they decided not to? Is there a global light to fill this void? Is it for a yellow blinker? Does a winch pop out of it? How can we go through this whole article and not mention it? This is what I come here for. I don’t come for a swing gate to tail gate change.
I wonder if the Prado in other countries will have vertical taillights but some Lexus marketing type insisted on a horizontal light bar.
I mean, the new Crown has a similar plastic filler around the taillight which they paint black for the two-tone trims. Maybe it’s just Toyota’s new thing.
https://i.imgur.com/YgOqd7m.jpg
Ahh, perfect – another $100k off-roader that will be terrorizing roads and grocery store parking lots.
It looks like it’s taking a visual acuity test.
How much can we make every new car squint before we completely lose headlights as a design cue? Or have we already lost?
(Winking Miata emoji)
I don’t have the money for this, but as big fan of my 2004 V6 4Runner, I’ll say that this new GX makes me salivate with its overland capabilities.
My wife’s into it! Hopefully we can get her one in a couple of years. It’s completely for her. Not for me. Obviously.
Just saw that it’s rated for 17 MPG combined. In 2023? Yikes. Apparently a hybrid will come later. We’ll pass until then.
I wouldn’t expect too much MPG improvement from the hybrid version. Maybe 2-3 MPG combined better.
It’ll be likely very similar to the Tundra and Sequoia hybrids, where the system is there to add torque assist at low RPMs and reduce turbo lag a bit.
It’s a large, body on frame, brick shaped heavy vehicle with full-time 4×4, hybrid or not, it won’t get good MPG.
If all they can manage is 17, it seems like they should have just kept the V8.
We now have an exponentially more complicated engine that gives us a fuel economy benefit that’s negligible at best. I’m going to keep asking the same question-if the engine causes the car to fail prematurely does it actually offer any environmental benefits? It sure doesn’t seem like it to me.
My other question is why Toyota and most other Japanese manufacturers haven’t figured out how to make a truck/SUV worthy engine that isn’t a total gas hog yet. BMW has the B58 straight 6 that’s essentially as powerful as this twin turbo 6 and it manages mid 20s combined fuel economy even in the X7. Mazda just developed an inline 6 that’s similarly impressive for the three row CX-90. Say what you will about the extra beefy 4 poppers GM and Ford are using now, but they do a whole hell of a lot better than 17 MPG.
This engine does very little to silence the “Toyota is doing too little when it comes to the environment” critics, and like I said…I’m potentially a target demographic for this vehicle but if it’s a family hauler and it gets under 20 MPG combined it’s an instant no dice…and frankly I could probably even bump that up to 25.
Maybe because they don’t face a lot of pressure to do so, since their corporate fleets have a heavy dose of Prius, Corolla, Civic, etc.
The domestic truck makers and German luxury SUVs sell too many guzzlers and have to invest R&D into fuel economy, likely at the expense of cost or durability, whereas Toyota can just keep selling their dead reliable V8s until, well now apparently.
That doesn’t explain the poor performance of this V6TT though. That’s a mystery to me too. Maybe they figure anyone buying for fuel economy will get the inevitable hybrid anyways?
Yeah, I was watching this one expecting efficiency improvements. 1 mpg better than the V8. Ouch.
Same. Looks and infotainment aren’t enough for me to upgrade, I want a modicum of fuel efficiency and total reliability. While I get a few people will like it for towing, for my applications I really don’t need much more power (and I suspect most people won’t either). I’ll keep the goofy spindle for now…and the V8 behind it.
really psyched to see what the Prado is like. I hope they give it barn a swinging rear door and a 3dr version like prior gens
I was surprised to see that this has a shorter front overhang than the outgoing model, because the overhang looks long for an offroad-oriented vehicle. (Find a picture or video that shows it directly from the side, and you’ll see what I mean.)
Styling-wise, this is a hit — especially given the low bar that is Lexus. They did a great job re-imagining the spindle IMO.
The spindle is very slowly disappearing, as if to save face for the egregious error they have to take a decade for it to morph into something that looks normal. Lexus, you have our permission to speed up the metamorphosis.
This looks like a real winner and strong competition for the H/K, Lincoln, BMW and GM offerings. It’s also the one most likely to still be on the road in thirty years.
Yummmmm too bad I am a couples rungs below the class that buys these. 2028 CPO!
Damn. They aren’t here to play.
Nice to see they’ve finally given up trying to fit the IS350 face onto all their SUVs and just styled something that makes sense.
Can’t wait to see these hit the lovely sandy beaches of Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and Chatham with Yale stickers and a big-ole Thule on top! Great job TH. I can’t wait to drive one of these and take a good look at it.
Pink Whales a-go-go. Black dog sticker, Duxbury LAX decal, check and check.
Hat tip for “wayback.” That’s what the rear-facing jumpseats in my mom’s Taurus were always called!
The GX is the fancy 4Runner, right? Does this mean we’re seeing some of what the next 4Runner is going to be? Because Lexus’s alphabet soup cars are meaninglessly expensive to me, but a nicely-specced 4Runner always makes me go “Hmmmm…” and stroke my chin in a speculative way.
Love it! Let’s say this starts at $60k. With the Telluride at $55k for top trims (plus the Kia $20k markup)… which would you buy?
This has me 2nd guessing my Rivian R1S order.
Is this a rhetorical question?
I feel like they’re gonna bump this up to $75k minimum, though that’s still a pretty decent deal. They need to clear a space for the TX above the $50k RX and fill the gap between the TX and the $92k LX.
Is that a joke? Lexus vs. Kia at the same price (which this won’t start at 60k I bet). What you been smokin?
rear locker, 33’s, 112.2 magic wheelbase, 8000 lbs towing. Oh man, this almost makes up for the Land Cruiser leaving the market.
There’s a rumor the Prado might be coming to the US rebadged as the Land Cruiser.. times could be interesting.
I don’t really see a need with the GX550 and the fact that the new 4Runner will be based on this chassis. How many variants of the F platform do they need? LX, Sequoia, GX, 4Runner, Tacoma. All the bases are covered. I guess Toyota could simply un-lexus the GX and give it a smaller more efficient power plant, but that seems like the 4Runner to me.
Agreed! I’m interested in getting a base model (“Premium”), changing the wheels myself, and then installing a rear locker (similar to how we added crawl control to our GX 460s). I bet that would be cheaper than the supposedly top trim Over Trail model and save the ugly plastic fender flares.
I bet the delta in savings would pay for a nice suspension setup.
But no split rear gate!
Yeah, still better than side hinged
I guess they are saving the slide down rear window for the 4Runner? Feels like a lost opportunity…