Bummed that Toyota won’t be sending the newest Land Cruiser 4×4 to America? Blame your fellow countrymen and women, who didn’t buy enough of the old Land Cruisers for Toyota to justify re-upping the iconic SUV here. Rather than wait 25 years to import one, or figure out how to do that right now, may we interest you in the new Land Cruiser’s Lexus-badged equivalent, the LX?
Lexus has just announced the arrival of the next-generation LX SUV, which we presume will be based once again on the global Land Cruiser platform. The new Lexus LX will debut on October 14, and a brief video released on Instagram depicts a Lexus-lookin’ SUV barrelling around off-road—another hint that the LX’s pedigreed off-road breeding (i.e., the Land Cruiser connection) isn’t going anywhere.
So far, we don’t have much more than that Instagram post to go on. The new Land Cruiser is powered by a twin-turbo V-6 engine or a diesel that surely won’t be coming to the United States. Given Lexus’s affinity for hybrid powertrains, it wouldn’t be outside of the realm of possibility to see the new Toyota Tundra pickup’s gasoline-electric hybrid powertrain that uses a twin-turbo V-6 engine to make an appearance, here. (The Tundra’s platform is vaguely related to the new Land Cruiser’s, so the powertrains should be swappable.) Four-wheel drive will surely be standard, as will third-row seats. A few commenters on Instagram have pointed out that the current LX’s split tailgate (the lower half swings down, while the upper half swings up) seems to have gone missing, but it’s tough to tell one way or another from the video.
We’ll know more when the LX fully debuts later this month.
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