Lexus has just registered RX 300 as a trademark in Australia, which may indicate the mid-size crossover may be getting a new engine option. The nameplate was submitted in March and approved in May as trademark #1757381.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire — just last month, the NX 300 nameplate was registered and the GS 300 nameplate was re-registered in the USA, Australia, and Europe. Even so, it’s worth pointing out that the RX 300 trademark still stands in Europe but is now considered “dead” in the USA.
The 255 horsepower 3.5L V6 in the all-wheel drive IS 300/RC 300 would seem the obvious engine to power the NX/RX/GS 300, but by the numbers, it only represents a 20 hp boost over the 2.0L turbo engine.
(Do these trademarks signal the development of a new engine altogether? It would make sense, as an updated NX and RX could introduced in roughly the same time frame as the next-generation GS.)