Having named it their Four Wheeler of the Year in 2003 and 2004, Four Wheeler magazine has been a longtime fan of the original Lexus GX, so with the introduction of the GX 460, the magazine’s reviewers were naturally eager to put the next generation model to the test and see if it could live up to the high bar set by its predecessor.
True to its off-road emphasis, the reviewers liked its retained factory 4×4 design:
For starters, while the GX 460 has been refined for 2010, this is no crossover wannabe: The vehicle still uses the same body-on-frame architecture as the Toyota 4Runner and (overseas) Land Cruiser Prado, so while it may not quite have the crisp handling and cornering characteristics of a unitbody crossover, it’s going to be much better suited to the kinds of rough terrain we frequently encounter-and a heckuva lot easier to modify as well. (Could a Project TraiLex 2.0 be in our future? We’re mulling it over.)
They also tested the Crawl Control and various driver assistance features, praising their utility and also their ability to be turned off:
The Nav screen can even give you a split view looking forward and to the side simultaneously. Or you can simply turn everything off-like we did-and enjoy the GX’s quiet cabin and luxurious street and trail manners.
Since its sibling 4Runner just won our Four Wheeler of the Year award for 2010, we’d wager that the new GX has got to be considered an early favorite to capture top honors next year. Stay tuned-we’ll let you know what happens as soon as 2011 rolls around.
Four Wheeler concludes that the GX 460 is “still the gold standard in luxury SUVs that you can take on challenging trails,” a strong vote of confidence for the redesigned model.
[Source: Four Wheeler]
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