From the 2015 New York International Auto Show, Cars.com's Kelsey Mays takes a look at the 2016 Lexus RX.
Transcript
(car engine starting) Lexus didn't introduce the RX SUV until the 1999 model year, but it's become the brand's most popular SUV. Accounting for three out of every 10 Lexus vehicles sold all types of cars in the brand's 26 year history.
We're here at the Auto Show and this is the brand new, redesigned, fourth generation Lexus RX. Let's take a look inside and out. Now the redesigned RX definitely has a progression on Lexus's current sort of styling trends here. A lot of L-shaped lighting upfront. This here at the Auto Show is an F Sport version. It's got a very unique grill insert here, which really fuses the upper hand kind of lower portions of the RX's grills. A lot of NX styling themes here. The NX is Lexus's smaller SUV. The new RX, still significantly larger than the NX, remains about the same size as the outgoing RX, According to Lexus. The alloy wheels now go all the way up to 20 inches in diameter, versus 19's before. Now, check out the C pillar right here. A lot of glass here along the side actually gives the appearance of a floating roof. A swooping redesign on the inside of the RX features pretty good materials and a lot of interesting, really fascinating design here. Lots of stacking, lots of kind of layering going on kind of really a tour de force of what you're seeing in a lot of Toyota and Lexus products. Now Lexus, Toyota's luxury brand. Soft stuff, obviously we're accounts in a luxury vehicle, a large center screen here above the top, kind of center part of the dashboard, can be all the way up to 12.3 inches, Lexus says. The controller for it is this sort of joystick down here. interestingly, the brand didn't go for kind of, it's more updated a touch pad that it has in some vehicles, went back to this controller and has entered buttons on the left and the right, pretty easy setup, I got to say, compared to what some editors think about that touch pad. Another nice thing, real buttons here for the climate controls, Lexus has gone to capacitive touch buttons in certain areas. Nice to see they didn't go that route for the new RX. Now we're in the back seat and I'll make a note about that seat pillar here. It looks like it's glass from the outside. Obviously not the case from the inside. It's still a very versatile rear seat though in the RX. Lexus says it added leg room, that knee room, as you can see, there's an absolute ton of it back here. The seats still sits a little bit low to the ground, That was kind of an issue in the last RX, kind of remains the case today. However, it's still a very versatile rear seat here. It moves forward and backward quite a bit here, and it folds in a 40, 20, 40 split. So the center part even comes down here. If you've got to put through skis or something longer. Now a cool feature that I'm glad Lexus retained, is this sort of cloth backing to the seat, which keeps there from being any kind of cargo catching gaps in the cargo floor if you have the seat forward. There's optional power folding seats now, they're one touch. So you just wait for two beeps and the seat kind of comes down on its own here a little bit slowly, but just fine. And when the seat comes forward, it actually kind of powers back and it goes back into its rear most position when you do that. So again, no gaps back here with cargo, kind of a really cool setup. Now the RX will come as an RX 350 with a 300 horsepower V6, as well as an RX hybrid. There will also be F sport, sportier versions of both cars. Although we don't know yet when any RX actually goes on sale. So stay tuned to cars.com for all of that, more pricing information when it becomes available and eventually our driving impressions on this redesign.
