Lexus likes to look at itself as a rival to the likes of BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi. However, its family of models is nowhere near as extensive and it lacks a single high-performance SUV to fight those of its German competitors. This, however, could change.
During an interview with Motor1 prior to the 24 Hours of Daytona last weekend, Lexus vice president for product planning and strategy, Cooper Ericksen, said that the Japanese automaker is indeed considering such a model.
According to Ericksen, one of the most important things Lexus is trying to determine is what form a high-performance Lexus SUV could take.
“[What] we’re currently trying to figure out is [if] the on-road performance aspect [is] more important [for Lexus] to invest in than the off-road performance.”
Performance-focused SUVs from BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Jaguar, typically place a priority on road performance at the sacrifice of off-roading abilities. In all likelihood, Lexus would go down a similar route with a go-faster version of one of its high-riding models.
As for what would be the most likely Lexus SUV model to get such a version, that remains unknown but the UX, RX, and LX are all possible candidates, but if we had to choose we’d lean more towards the RX to bring the fight to the X5 M and GLE 63 AMG. Among the key boxes which Lexus would need to tick include sporty handling, gobsmacking power, and eye-catching looks.
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