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ST. HELENA, CA – Yes, Toyota Motor Corp. will launch an all-new Lexus RX cross/utility vehicle, and yes it looks a lot like the old one.
Lexus officials say RX owners, the most loyal of all Lexus connoisseurs, like the way their vehicle looks and don’t want a radical styling change, thank you very much.
Styling aside, the new ’10 Lexus RX 350 and 450h hybrid are fine vehicles, with confident handling characteristics and, in the case of the RX 450h, near class-leading power that should push the CUV away from the hockey-mom, soft-roader image it’s held for so long.
The RX series, arriving in February, is a bona fide fuel sipper and gets a plush new interior with equally impressive tech features.
Toyota engineers have tightened the suspension and fixed the under-weight, over-assisted steering, two major quibbles with the current-generation mom mobile, to bring the RX up to snuff with most competitors, which lean toward sporty instead of soft.
In the five-plus years since the current RX launched in 2003, the bar has been raised for luxury CUVs.
Honda Motor Co. Ltd.’s Acura MDX, Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.’s Infiniti FX and Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz M-Class have been revised; and new entrants such as Ford Motor Co.’s Lincoln MKX, Volkswagen AG’s Touareg and Audi Q7 have arrived in recent years, aiming at Lexus’ dominance in the sector.
