Last spring, I drove several different Lexus and Toyota crossovers and SUVs, seemingly in anticipation of the arrival of a GX 550 Overtrail+. I’d been thinking it might be time to move on from my own GX, and driving the new one would be a big push in that direction.
It rules. 10/10, perfectly executed product. No notes. (Daniel did the real review, I’m just agreeing with him here.) I haven’t driven a new Mercedes-Benz G-wagen, and I understand it’s a very impressive car, but the price difference between the G-Class and the GX means it would have to be almost inconceivably impressive to sway me.
There are some limits to what one can reasonably expect from a car these days. It’s an automatic, it’s heavy and it uses a lot of gas. Those are my criticisms. Other than that, I am telling you without reservation, if you’re thinking about buying a luxury SUV, you should probably just go buy the Lexus GX.
The first time I sat in it, I said “yeah” out loud before I even pressed the starter button. It’s one of those cars that just feels right, like an old Porsche 911. I edited this post from Daniel about how incredible the GX’s visibility is. When I saw his headline, I thought, “Man, a whole post on how good it is to sit in?” but he was right, it’s fantastic. The sight lines are phenomenal, and everything is where you’d expect it to be.
I didn’t thrash the GX super hard off-road, but I did hit some trails and do the usual obstacles on my property, and I feel comfortable saying it’s massively capable right out of the box — that’s not a huge surprise given the specs. I don’t even know that I’d opt for a lift right away.
What did surprise me was how good it was on the road. It’s a tall and boxy SUV on big chunky tires with a stick axle in the back, but it corners well and the suspension tune is perfect. It’s not a sports car, or even one of the sportier crossovers, but where my lifted GX was fun to drive fast with its high center of gravity being managed by its impressive Icon suspension, the new one just rips around corners without drama at surprising speeds. It’s also dead quiet and very comfortable.
My old GX was in fantastic mechanical condition, but it was 17 years old and showing its age in places. The paint was bad, and I will admit that while it still looked very cool on the trail, I did feel somewhat less than cool pulling up to a funeral in it last year. There was even a shovel on the roof. But on the other hand, because it was old, I didn’t mind bashing it through the woods and didn’t worry about the paint or what the kids were up to in the back seat. It was a great car to get me through the first few years of life with kids, and I could have kept it on the road for the rest of my life.
But I sold it. Contributor Zach Wickliffe had been asking me about it for a while, and he was getting ready to move out West. If I wanted to place the GX in great hands, I knew my window was closing. So I spent about 24 hours cleaning it, replacing the alternator and driving it down to Zach.
Zach has further cleaned it up, prepping it for life in the Pacific Northwest. He even removed a remote start system I never knew was there.
I miss the car a lot. I still don’t know if I should have sold it. But, my plan to replace it with a new GX hit a surprising snag when Daniel pointed out how much cheaper it could be to lease a different white SUV. More on that in another post soon.
