First Drive: 2010 Lexus GX 460 sticks to its trucky roots

First Drive: 2010 Lexus GX 460 sticks to its trucky roots

Filed under: SUV, Lexus, First Drive, Luxury, Off-Road

2010 Lexus GX 460 - Click above for high-res image gallery

The 2002 Lexus GX 470 was little more than a Toyota 4Runner with a healthy dollop of Lexus luxury on top, but at the time, it didn't have to be anything more than that. It seemed just about every automaker that had an SUV in the stable was introducing an uplevel version to capitalize on American consumers' insatiable appetite for luxury sport-utes, so why not Toyota? Lexus had already adopted the full-size Land Cruiser, so it made sense to bring along the 4Runner for the slightly less well-heeled.

Although it didn't set the charts on fire, the GX won over enough people that Lexus has continued churning it out virtually unchanged until now. In fact, the company easily moved every 2009 model it made. Still, even the best vehicles need to be updated from time to time, and with an all-new 2010 4Runner hitting dealers, it was time for this Lexus to undergo a similar overhaul. But the state of the economy, environment and the changing luxury SUV market itself meant that the Japanese automaker needed to rethink a few things for its sophomore endeavor. And it has.

We spent time on and off road in San Diego County during our stint with the new 2010 Lexus GX 460, and what we have learned was quite surprising. Despite the market's shift toward crossovers, the GX is still body-on-frame and has a V8, full-time four-wheel drive and takes up just as much space as the previous generation model. It still looks like a truck, drives like a truck and handles like a truck. But is that such a bad thing? Is there still a place for this type of vehicle... or is it simply an anachronism from a once-thriving, but now rapidly vanishing market? Follow the jump to see what we discovered.


Gallery: First Drive: 2010 Lexus GX460



Photos copyright (C)2009 Frank Filipponio / Weblogs, Inc.Continue reading First Drive: 2010 Lexus GX 460 sticks to its trucky roots

First Drive: 2010 Lexus GX 460 sticks to its trucky roots originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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