New Lexus GX SUV Due This Fall
By Christie Schweinsberg WardsAuto.com, May 15, 2009 8:00 AM

NEWPORT BEACH, CA – Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc.’s Lexus brand will launch a next-generation GX SUV this fall, a source familiar with the plan tells Ward’s.

The GX, a midsize body-on-frame SUV that shares a platform with the Toyota Land Cruiser, debuted in the U.S. in 2003 as an ’03 model.

The upcoming model will get Toyota’s new 4.6L V-8 engine, the source says. The small V-8, which debuted in the ’10 Toyota Tundra, making 310 hp, will replace a 263-hp 4.7L V-8 in the ’09 GX.

The next GX also will receive a new interior design as well as updated interior features such as a next-generation navigation system. Additionally, it will sport revised sheetmetal and body panels including a different rear door, the source says.

Lexus General Manager Mark Templin declines to confirm the new GX but says the brand wants a continued presence in the segment.

“The largest SUVs have been hit the hardest, but there’s still a segment of the population that wants those vehicles,” he tells Ward’s here during a media preview for the Lexus HS 250h sedan.

“(SUV owners) tow things. They play hard. They do a little bit of off-roading, not much. More than actually doing it, they want to know they can do it if they have to. We still think there’s a viable market with our GX.”

New GX to receive different sheetmetal than ’09 model pictured here.

Lexus hoped to sell 20,000 GX units in the SUV’s first full year of sale when it debuted in 2003 as a stopgap between the midsize RX cross/utility vehicle and large LX SUV. However, sales in recent years have underperformed that figure. Deliveries in April plummeted 66.1% from like-2008 to 2,210 units.

The GX’s best sales year was 2004, when it sold 35,420 units.

Ward’s data shows the GX’s segmentation group, Luxury Middle SUV, posted the fifth-largest decline of all U.S. light-vehicle segments in the first four months of 2009, losing 52.8% of its volume through April compared with year-ago.

cschweinsberg@wardsauto.com