Toyota unveiled the new J300 Land Cruiser earlier this year, and sadly, it’s not coming to the United States. But there was always a good chance America would get the SUV in Lexus LX form — after all, the J200 generation always sold better with the fancier badge in the U.S. Lexus appeared to drop a teaser for the new LX during the NX reveal; nowm the brand has confirmed it will unveil the new LX on October 13th.
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What do we know about this new Land Cruiser under a different name? Well, Lexus has provided little hard info. We saw some visual tweaks also present in the NX, such as the horizontal light bar and all-caps Lexus badging on the rear. More telling is the LX 600 badge.
Lexus has stopped tracking the three-digit number for models to engine displacement, so don’t expect a bonkers 6.0-liter V8. The “600” likely means the engine will be more potent than the outgoing 570. There’s no “h,” so this SUV probably is not a hybrid. The best bet is that the new LX will get the same twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6 used in the J300 Land Cruiser — where it puts out 409 horsepower and 479 lb-ft of torque — and the new Toyota Tundra. The LX should use the same TNGA-F truck platform seen in both vehicles.
A leak from earlier this summer suggests the LX 600 could be the upgrade model with both F-Sport and luxury VIP trims. That leak had Lexus keeping the tried and true (but woefully inefficient) 5.7-liter V8 engine around for the 2022 LX as a base model, however, so take it with a grain of salt.
Dropping the new Land Cruiser, Tundra, and Lexus LX within a few months suggests the company is now going full bore on its off-road SUV overhaul. The next generation Sequoia should be the next domino to fall, followed by updates to the Lexus GX, Toyota 4Runner and Toyota Tacoma.