2024 Lexus GX550 Overtrail+ First Test: Mall-Crawler Turns Dirt Brawler
How does the GX's new off-road variant cope with dirt, mud, rock, and asphalt?
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Pros
- 10/10 design
- Off-road capability
- No third row = room for stuff
Cons
- Poor fuel economy
- Could use more power
- Is a lot of money
When a past-generation Lexus GX would roll off the lot and into the hands of its first owner, the chances are the most strenuous wheeling it would do involved grocery runs, trips to country clubs, and little league games—you know, premium SUV stuff.
By the time it had passed through two or three owners, though, those old GXs would end up in the hands of off-roaders seeking a cheap, capable hack to explore side roads and backcountries in; out would go the heavy alloys and low-profile body addenda, in would come all-terrain tires on unfussy rims and bash bars; interestingly, this was where the GX would begin to come alive. Now, for its third generation, Lexus cuts out the middleman—well, owner(s)—and delivers an off-road-ready GX right from the dealership floor, in the shape of the Lexus GX550 Overtrail+. So, how does it stack up?
It’s a GX, but Which One Is It?
Buckle up. There are three different versions of this new GX: Luxury, Premium, and Overtrail models. For each of those three, there is the option to go for the plus model, which in each trim gets you a few extra nice bits. So really, that’s more like six GX variants.
The model we have here is the Overtrail+, a new trim introduced for this generation and specifically geared toward off-roading. Gone are many of the convenience-oriented elements (see ya, electric running boards), and so is the third-row seat, as Lexus quite heard customers when they said that if they were going to take the GX off-road, they wanted more room for cargo and sleeping. Besides, there’s the new Lexus TX for buyers seeking a functional three-row luxury piece.
The Overtrail+ keeps many of the finer elements of the GX Luxury+ (park assist, massaging front seats, etc.) but for the most part, everything about this model, finished in Earth and Black Onyx, screams “OFF-ROAD RIG!” That said, and despite the all-terrain tires and deleted third row, the Overtrail+ still weighs a little more than the seven-seat Premium model, though it performed rather well in our testing, especially for an off-road-focused vehicle. In fact, when we ran it from 0 to 60 mph and through the quarter mile, it returned runs of 6.5 seconds and 14.9 seconds at 93.6 mph. For context, the Premium GX registered a 6.3-second run to 60 mph and took 14.7 seconds to break the quarter mile (at 95.0 mph).
Our figure-eight test is where we bring together metrics covering acceleration, braking, and cornering together, and the GX handled it well, with a surprising amount of poise in the corners, dependable feel and feedback through the brake pedal, and good, strong upshifts on the straights. It completed the course in 28.0 seconds, registering 0.60 g average. Curiously, the Premium GX took 28.4 seconds, registering 0.61 g average, on less aggro tires.
What a Looker
On the looks front, the GX550 Overtrail+ is a knockout. By comparison, dare we say this new GX has made the current Land Rover Defender (itself a love letter to boxy, utilitarian design) look a tad ungainly?
There’s the wonderfully low beltline of the windshield and side windows, the way it steps up at the C-pillar, the aggressive front end (I’m not a lover of the Lexus grille, but I find the GX carries it well) and—wow—those bulges on either side of the hood. This is car design right out of the top drawer. It shares much of its bodywork with the incoming Toyota Land Cruiser, though even a cursory glance at the interior reveals the Lexus achieves a proper level of luxury. This specific GX has Black NuLuxe (faux leather) trim with Olive Ultrasuede accents, which feel premium yet robust; pretty yet rugged. Its general wipe-down-ability is excellent, too, with many a muddy boot print removed with a single swipe of a wet wipe.
How Does It Drive?
What remains the same no matter which of the GX550s you opt for is the engine: a 3.4-liter twin-turbocharged V-6, found across many models in the Toyota and Lexus lineups including the Tundra, Sequoia, and Lexus LX (with which this GX also shares a chassis and body-on-frame construction). In GX guise, the V-6 puts out 349 hp and 479 lb-ft torque, with Lexus promising a hybridized version (also found elsewhere in the Toyota Lexus universe) coming sometime in the future.
Off road is where the Overtrail+ GX was destined to live, and across the different terrains we passed through it held up spectacularly well—traversing rocky canyons, navigating over deep mud and through water with ease. Even when it did get stuck, salvation (in the form of one of the six drive modes, four terrain modes, downhill assist control, and locking control of the center or rear locking diffs, or both) was never far away.
In terms of how that all translates to its road performance, engine torque is plentiful, and the 10-speed automatic transmission does a great job of putting it down whenever you need it; indeed, the Overtrail+ has a very respectable 9,096 pounds of towing capacity.
This new, third-generation V-6-powered GX has 48 more horsepower than the outgoing V-8-powered GX, however the corresponding acceleration leaves a bit to be desired. It’s not slow, though on a couple of occasions entering freeways or changing lanes to perform an overtake we wished the GX had just a touch more kick.
Perhaps the 5,547-pound curb weight played a part in that, though on the asphalt twists and turns of the roads around Big Bear Lake, California, we were rather surprised by how spritely the GX felt. Far from feeling underpowered or overtired (the Overtrain+ runs 33-inch all-terrain tires on 18-inch rims) the GX felt refreshingly light and lean, handling the curves with composure and a refinement that fed from the just-right steering weight to the surprisingly settled lateral body motion, and all the way down to the brilliant brake balance. Considering this is a body-on-frame vehicle, we expected a world of body roll and oversteer, but thanks in part at least to the electric kinetic dynamic suspension system (e-KDSS, a trick setup that hydraulically interlinks the mounting points of the front and rear anti-roll bars in such a way as to allow them to behave like active anti-roll bars), as well as the Torsen locking center diff (which enables permanent four-wheel drive to work without binding in tight turns), the GX handles the blacktop with an unfussiness not often felt in vehicles of this size.
One familiar big-vehicle thing we felt was the pull of passing gas stations. The EPA estimates a 15-mpg city rating for the GX, not ideal, and highway miles that clock in at 21 mpg is not much better. It’s more efficient than the old V-8, but not by much.
In Summary
No matter which version (and in which trim) of GX you go for, what you’re getting is a great-looking SUV, amply capable and infinitely applicable to whatever kind of life you throw at it.
With the Overtrail+, Lexus offers an out-of-the-box off-road experience that can be enjoyed by novices and pros alike, and one which doesn’t come with a lot of the on-road drawbacks common with off-road rigs.
That experience comes at a premium (the model we drove was $81,415) and isn’t wholly without concession, but overall, it’s easy to become endeared to the GX550. And whether squeaky clean in the driveway or filthy dirty in the middle of nowhere, it always looks good.
