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NEWS
Lexus plotting seven-seat crossover
Japanese luxury brand to stretch next RX – or create an all-new three-row SUVLexus is working on a seven-seat crossover that would finally fill the yawning gap between the only two SUVs it currently sells in Australia – the RX and LX – according to Automotive News.
Toyota's luxury brand has confirmed it will enter Australia's hot-selling mid-size SUV segment with the all-new NX 300h hybrid around October, followed by its first turbo-petrol model, the NX 200t, early next year.
But apart from the hulking 200 Series LandCruiser-based LX570, Lexus Australia remains without an SUV that offers more than five seats.
That could change within as little as two years, according to Lexus USA's Group Vice-President Jeff Bracken, who told Automotive News at this month's New York motor show third-row seating "is the number one issue we hear from dealers".
"We feel like we're missing a 35,000-units-a-year opportunity. We're working hard to rectify that," he said.
Bracken said Lexus' seven-seat crossover quandary – which is even more glaring in Australia, where the Prado-based Lexus GX 460 eight-seat off-roader (pictured) is not sold – will be solved one of two ways.
It's possible the redesigned RX – due to emerge late next year, based on Toyota's larger third-generation Kluger, which now comes standard with seven seats – will grow to accommodate a third row of seats, perhaps as an option.
Alternatively, Lexus could develop an all-new seven-seat crossover wagon that would slot in between the volume-selling RX (priced from under $70,000) and the $140,000-plus LX.
That would leave the next-generation GX, which is at least two years away, as a lightly modified luxury SUV based on the body-on-frame Prado for only the US and Russian markets. While the current GX remains profitable even at low sales volumes, the RX is Lexus' top-seller, averaging about 100,000 US sales annually.
Bracken's statements suggest the latter scenario is more likely, and there's speculation the all-new SUV – possibly badged as the TX, a nameplate Lexus has trademarked – will be based on either the front-wheel drive-based Toyota Camry/Kluger platform or the rear-drive Lexus IS/GS chassis architecture.
Both solutions would give Lexus a car-based seven-seat crossover, but the former would bring significant packaging advantages, while the latter would offer more dynamic handling.
"It could be any number of solutions," Bracken said. "We could bring it to market in 2016 or 2017. If we can get it, that's the priority. We won't be bothered if it steps on RX. We want it."
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Written byMarton Pettendy
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