![]() Lexus' deft sound deadening work pairs well with the RX's relaxed comportment this is a serene vehicle even at highway speeds.įuel consumption estimates are 12.2/8.9 L/100 km (city/highway) my tester averaged a little more than 11 L/100 km in a mix of city and highway driving, and about 10 L/100 km in straight highway cruising.Įarlier in the year: Test Drive: 2016 Lexus RX 350 F SportĮxterior styling like this leads to certain expectations about what you'll find inside. If that's more your speed, you still get those different drive modes in this version, but they only affect throttle response, steering assist and transmission behaviour. F-Sport trim levels get an air suspension that brings a firmer ride when the drive mode selector is toggled to the sport setting, but this base model gets old-fashioned metal springs that provide a comfortable ride, but not an interesting one. If you're looking for sharp handling, you're reading about the wrong version of this car. That V6 has always been a swell performer, but it plays even better with this eight-speed, whose closely-knit ratios do well at keeping the engine in the meat of a power band that generates 295 hp and 267 lb-ft of torque.Īs with any transmission with this many gears, this one is kept busy with rapid-fire shifts in normal acceleration, but they’re handled so smoothly you could be forgiven for thinking this was a dual-clutch gearbox. Under the hood is a 3.5L V6 carried over from last year, only this time it's bolted to a new eight-speed automatic transmission. Indeed, most of the RX is just as conventional as it always has been. That presentation led many to believe Lexus might be turning the RX into something closer to a crossover coupe, like the BMW X6 or Mercedes GLE Coupe, but the end result was far more conventional than that, despite all the edges and creases in the sheet metal. Lexus teased the fourth-generation RX before its 2015 New York auto show debut with a single image that showed just one rear corner of the car. With the 1999 RX, Lexus was one of the first brands to foray into the uncharted territory of upscale crossovers and SUVs, and was instrumental in helping to create one of the auto industry's most lucrative vehicle segments. That right there is the difference between an established brand trying on an offbeat new look and an ugly upstart attempting to get off the ground. And yet the RX literally remains as popular as it has ever been. I'll be up front with you: I don't like the look of this grille on any of Lexus' vehicles, and if online anecdotes and the real-life opinions of people I showed this car to are any indication, I'm not alone. To be clear, this is not the first version of the RX with the spindle face, but it's the first to display it so prominently. The spindle is now standard on all of Lexus’ models, including another of its bestsellers, the RX mid-size crossover, which is redesigned into its fourth generation for 2016. Among the first cars to wear the controversial new look was the ES 350, one of Lexus' most popular cars. There's a comparison to be made between that Edsel styling exercise and one that began at Lexus around 2013, when that upscale Japanese brand began attaching its spindle grille design to its cars. The new brand was so poorly received that Ford wrapped it up after three model years’ worth of dismal sales. Unfortunately, the feature that best distinguished Edsel cars was a controversial grille design that was compared to a horse collar, among other things. ![]() In 1958, Ford introduced a car called the Edsel, a traditional-enough line of sedans, convertibles and station wagons to be sold alongside the Ford and Lincoln-Mercury brands. When you see what Lexus has done with this fourth-generation model, is it any wonder the RX helped define the segment it now, arguably, dominates? In car design, as in life, appearance matters.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |