#gx

Today I am testing a 2024 Lexus GX 550 Premium AWD that may have just come from the national launch event.

The delightfully angular new Lexus GX, planned for deliveries early next year, has been given a price tag by the company’s pencil-necked accountants. While a roughly $4,000 walk from the starting cost of last year’s rig, the extra cheddar buys a far better vehicle.

Beyond loading one of their nifty new 2024 GX 550 Overtrail models with a raft of burly accessories, the crew at Lexus has also dusted off a couple of older trucks for this year’s SEMA Show in Las Vegas.

Lexus has finally shown the brand-new GX midsize SUV for 2024 and it’s leaning hard into its status as an off-road vehicle. Whereas the previous generation offered something a little more brutish looking than your typical Lexus utility vehicle, the new model is about as butch as luxury vehicles come. The only way the manufacturer could have been more clear about what this vehicle was about would be if it put a giant decal on the side that read “BODY-ON FRAME 4X4 FOR DIRT PLEASE.”

With the 2024 Lexus GX forthcoming, the manufacturer has been issuing teasers to whet the public appetite. Thus far, it seems like the company will be offering a boxy design hoping to balance a rugged aesthetic without sacrificing a sense of luxury. But the initial teasers looked extremely aggressive, undermining the premium nature of the brand. 

But Lexus issued another teaser image this week, offering a better sense of the vehicle that’s slated to debut next month. 

Lexus teased the updated GX this week, suggesting that the model is about to become a bit more brutish looking. While the SUV has always resembled a Toyota 4Runner in a tuxedo, the next version is posed to share a platform with the Tundra and Sequoia — both of which are quite boxy.

Just because the Lexus GX 460 rarely goes off-road, doesn’t mean it can’t. Despite the fact that most GXs prowl suburban malls, Lexus is still working to bolster its boulder-bashing bonafides.

The 2020 Lexus GX 460 will be available with an Off-Road Package with Multi-Terrain Select. Available on the top-level Luxury Grade model, this package should help with all that off-roading that Lexus owners are apparently known to do. This system combines surface-selectable traction- and stability-control modes with the Panoramic View and Multi-Terrain Monitors, all but negating the need for a spotter when doing some hardcore rock crawling.

Lexus is taking existing developed systems and technologies and incorporating them into the GX platform.

Motorsports coverage is rarely part of TTAC’s remit, but I would be remiss if I failed to mention the first Grand-Am race at Circuit of the Americas. It’s great to have another world-class track in the United States, and there was some great racing there this past week.