FINAL REPORT MILEAGE 4854
LEXUS RX
Life will be a lot less comfortable now this luxury SUV has left us
WHY WE RAN IT To find out if the original hybrid luxury SUV is still the best
little over 20 years ago, I was sent to cover the
A launch of the secondgeneration Lexus RX for Autocar. At the time it was not much more than a quirky niche player over here yet, thanks to the US market’s voracious appetite for it, the world’s best-selling SUV.
While it has since gained traction in the UK, it has lost that title to its little brother, the Toyota RAV4 – a car that donated much of its drivetrain to this, the fifthgeneration RX, in a search for greater efficiency (presumably in terms of parts commonality as well as fuel consumption).
That means the sweet 3.5-litre V6 of old has been replaced by a 2.5-litre four-banger, but to (more than) make up for it, the RX 450h+ is a plug-in hybrid that offers more power and torque from its electric motors than from its petrol engine, in total mustering a useful 305bhp.
In daily use, particularly around town, that results in a car that feels effortlessly potent, with the muscular torque of the motors meaning you avoid the wearing droning so common among CVT-equipped cars.