When the original lexus rx landed in 1998 it was revolutionary laying out the framework for what we know today as a luxury crossover the car based rx looked enough like an suv while delivering a car like enough driving experience to convince masses of luxury customers that it not archaic body on frame behemoths were the way forward of course today many truckee
Gargantuan suvs live on look at the cadillac escalade or even lexus’s own lx 600 in gx models but the rx shoved them to the larger fringes of the market today nearly every compact and mid-sized luxury suv follows the rx template the all-new 2023 lexus rx might not be groundbreaking in that kind of generational fire preference shifting way but it represents the
Model’s biggest shake-up since y2k you see ever since reformatting the luxury suv space over two decades ago the rx had become ordinary the originals layout driving manners and refinements struck gold but if you study a 2022 lexus rx 350 the regular grade model it pretty much assembles the same cotary of parts from a v6 engine shared throughout the toyota and
Lexus lineups to a car platform found under well most of the toyota and lexus lineups competitors offer sportier driving dynamics turbo or supercharged engines and the like the lexus’s most daring aspect was also what’s most frustrating and infuriating to use touchpad think of your laptop’s touchpad that controlled the primary dashboard screen everything else
Was 1998 remastered with today’s features and lexus is in your face grill shape and edgy body creases the 2023 rx tears up that playbook in for the first time ditches the rx standard v6 engine for a more modern turbocharged 2.4 liter i4 in the rx 350 model while lexus had also set the pace decades ago with its first ever rx hybrid that too fell behind offering
Merely okay performance and unimpressive fuel economy there was no plug-in model either that changes too with the 23rx which adopts a new rx 450h plus plug-in hybrid model details forthcoming in addition to a revised hybrid the rx 350h and a new sporty hybrid the rx 500hf sport and while the new rx stays virtually the same size as before lexus has rearranged where
The primary bits go stretching the wheels farther apart opening up interior space improving the suv stance and chopping the front and rear overhangs for more aggressive profile lexus says the rx has moved to the gak architecture yet remains fundamentally a transverse engine front-wheel drive entity all-wheel drive is optional and on the hybrids included overall
Length holds at 192.5 inches the same as the old rx but the wheelbase swells by 2.4 inches to 112.2 width grows by one inch to 75.6 inches while the rx height is chopped by 0.4 inch to 67.3 these dimensional shifts massage the rx shape and is something altogether more appealing than the outgoing models nose heavy somewhat bulbous profile the hood now takes on
A more formal horizontal plane ditching the old rx minivan like schnoz and while the lexus won’t be mistaken for a rear drive model like the bmw x3 or mercedes-benz glc class it has a fresh modern appearance a big surprise is the grille which remasters the hourglass shape lexus has been honing for years while the overall effect of the grille surrounding bumper
And the nose cone above the lexus badge still says hourglass it does so in a subtler whisper not a shout the grills mesh pattern even fades into the bodywork at its edges other stylistic divergences with the old rx include the slimmer squara headlights smoother flanks and sleeker greenhouse lexus doesn’t call any attention to it but the diagonal quarter window
Behind the rear doors almost echoes the swoopy shape of the angled c-pillar on the original it’s not directly retro though it does add visual interest in an area the first rx did lexus has finally retired the rx touchpad based infotainment system in favor of a more straightforward touchscreen arrangement like that introduced last year in the smaller nx like on
That model the show stealer is the optional 14-inch lexus interface multimedia system it is joined by a digital gauge cluster display and together the two large displays form a blocky billboard that shuts up out of the dashboard ahead of the driver the rest of the dash has been reformed into a curt less contrived shape and features a lower section closer to the
Front passenger for a splash of airiness it also appears as though the rx will adopt the electronic button releases for the doors which are activated by pressing lightly on a button on the door pulls the exterior door handles are fixed and also have touch sensitive releases there are mechanical backups for both of course with the longer wheelbase legroom on the
Back increases as does cargo room despite the overall length of the rx remaining the same
Transcribed from video
2023 Lexus RX First Look By AutoM
