The new Lexus GX takes off-roading to new heights

Engineered to tackle any terrain with style, the Lexus GX Overtrail is set to make a serious impact on Australia’s premium 4WD market.

Lexus GX Overtrail.

Andrew Chesterton

3 min read

4:30AMApril 08, 2024.

Updated 7:58AMApril 08, 2024

I appreciate that, on the long list of things a company probably doesn’t want a new product compared to, the Titanic is right up there with the Hindenburg and whatever the hell Vegemite 2.0 was, but there’s no avoiding the similarities between the Lexus GX and that doomed ship.

After all, this is a big, boat-like SUV that’s dripping with opulence — think fine leather trimmings, a 21-speaker Mark Levinson stereo doing its best impression of that ill-fated band, and even a climate control system that moisturises your hair and skin as it cools the cabin — but one that is also currently tilting dangerously to one side, like a post-iceberg ocean liner.

The threat here isn’t ice, though. It’s just the opposite. A baking-hot and near-vertical embankment in the desert onto which the GX has mounted its two right-side wheels, filling the passenger-side windows with a too-close-for-comfort view of the ground, the usually vertical 4WD suddenly worryingly horizontal.

The GX’s predicament is entirely self-inflicted, with the premium off-roader (yes, there is such a thing … the Land Rover Defender is another) being put through its paces at a genuinely challenging 4WD course designed to torture-test the Lexus’s tech.

Lexus is Toyota’s high-end sibling, which makes this all-new GX the well-dressed cousin to the incoming LandCruiser Prado, and that means it’s also a proper — proper — 4WD, with low range and locking differentials and clever off-road-focused suspension that allows the wheels to flex and twist over deep ruts and rocky climbs.

In short, it’s unlike any Lexus to have gone before it, at least in Australia. In the USA, the GX is something of an icon, where it has been kicking around since 2002. This all-new version, though, is the first to arrive Down Under, and it opens up a whole new world of customers for the brand to talk to.

Lexus calls them the “lifestyle” people, which I take to mean wealthy Australians who are ready to tow a caravan or boat around the country. And there are apparently a lot of them.

Lexus says it was inundated with interest on the GX, long before it had released pricing or detailed specifications, and the 1250 examples it has secured for 2024 will all likely be sold before the first tyres touch Australian soil.

Speaking of tyres, the Lexus GX model you really want is the Overtrail model, yours for $122,250, which is fitted with comparatively small 18-inch wheels (the most luxurious model wears massive 22-inch alloys), but which are wrapped in the kind of thick off-road tyres that make the GX look ready to conquer the toughest of terrain, and which will surely strike fear into the cold metallic hearts of softer SUVs on the school pick-up circuit.

There are three GX trim levels, with the entry-level Luxury and flagship Sports Luxury housing seating for seven. The Overtrail, though, is a strict five-seater, replacing the third row with a cavernous boot area. So more people, or more stuff: the choice is yours.

Then there’s the engine. Lexus has vowed to electrify its entire fleet by 2030, but for now, the GX dodges any batteries or electric motors. Instead, the brand has shoehorned a sizeable 3.5-litre twin-turbocharged V6 under its bonnet, producing a 260kW and 650Nm, which it feeds through a 10-speed automatic to all four wheels. It will also tow 3.5 tonnes, which is something of a non-negotiable for the grey-nomad – sorry, lifestyle – crowd.

Even when being asked to shift a two-tonne-plus SUV, that’s plenty of punch, and so the GX feels more than sprightly enough when you plant your right foot, and there’s even a skin-tingling exhaust note that fills the cabin when you get aggressive with it. It’s thirsty, though, so be prepared to add your local fuel-station attendant to your inner circle.

It really is an impressive thing, this GX, ridiculously capable off the road, and pretty refined when you’re on the tarmac.

No matter how well-dressed a proper 4WD is, you can never expect its on-road manners to be as polished as they might be in a road-focused SUV, and the GX can feel a little vague and soggy through the steering, and the ride isn’t quite as supple as it would be without all the off-road stuff compromising things. But the Lexus does a pretty good job of straddling those two worlds, and even if you never leave the tarmac, you won’t feel as though you’re driving a truck.

The GX Overtrail might be among Lexus’s first crack at the off-road crowd in Australia, but it doesn’t feel like a first attempt. It might be able to mimic a sinking Titanic on command, but I suspect there’s a happier ending to this story for the brand.