The Lexus GX 460 is a truck-based, midsize SUV with three standard rows of seating. It’s tough as rocks, and about as old. First introduced in 2009, the GX 460 has soldiered through the years with the rugged body-on-frame architecture of old-school SUVs while competitors morphed into modern unibody crossovers that traded off-road chops for “car-like handling.” While its trucklike structure isn’t the only thing that makes the GX a throwback, it’s central to its go-anywhere personality and helps it stand out in a segment with few truly trail-ready contenders.

 The Lexus GX 460 is a different-looking SUV by North American standards, and there’s a good reason for that: it’s built on the same body-on-frame underpinnings as the international Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, giving it a tall stance and serious off-road brawn. Jen Dunnaway

The GX is available in three trims, starting at $54,475, including the $1,025 destination fee. Even the base GX comes standard with 10-way power-adjustable front seats, triple-beam LED headlights and a power moonroof. Heated and ventilated front seats can be added as a standalone option, as can navigation. Moving up to the Premium ($57,565) makes more features standard, and unlocks the ability to add things like second-row heated captains’ chairs, a power-folding third row, and Mark Levinson 17-speaker audio. 

While four-wheel drive with low-range is standard on all trims, only the top Luxury ($65,740) can be equipped with the $1,570 off-road package, which adds terrain modes, a transmission cooler, fuel tank protection, a trail-optimized panoramic monitor, and speed-adjustable crawl control (lesser GXs get only hill-descent assist). Also exclusive to the Luxury are an adaptive suspension and auto-leveling adjustable rear air shocks. 

Every Lexus GX is powered by a 4.6-liter V8 mated to a 6-speed automatic transmission, a powertrain that’s both a rare treat and a serious handicap.

The burly-sounding V8’s 301 horsepower and 329 pound-feet of torque are plenty, and its naturally-aspirated setup lends its acceleration an immediacy unencumbered by sometimes-hesitant turbochargers. In addition to immediate bursts of power, it can also tow up to 6,500 pounds. The downside is that the GX is exceptionally thirsty at the pump—it’s rated for just 15 mpg city, 19 highway, but our tester returned less than 12 mpg in real-world city driving.  

Though the GX hasn’t been redesigned since 2010, the large hourglass-shaped “spindle” grille is one of the cosmetic updates patched in over the years in an effort to freshen the aging SUV’s appearance.  Jen Dunnaway

On pavement, the GX emulates the pillowy ride of traditional luxury cruisers, and although the optional adaptive suspension offers a Sport mode, this rig is more suited to languid maneuvers and off-road trundling than high-speed canyon-carving. On the trail, however, the GX is a genuine bruiser, and used models are popular with hard-core off-road fans and overlanders.

The GX’s interior is whisper-quiet whether on gravel or highway, and the suspension soaks up bumps and roughness well—even the largest-available 19-inch wheels leave room for enough tire sidewall to do so. The GX’s tall stance and trucklike driving position are functions of its full-frame design, and they give the driver a commanding view of the road with good outward visibility all around.

Other views from the driver’s seat are a blast from the past. The dash interface is about as old as you can find on a modern vehicle, with the flat square buttons, clicky-clack toggles, and matte-silver trim accents of a generation hence. A proper mechanical gearshift is a nice throwback touch; more unforgivable is the infotainment, whose laggy responses and crude graphics are painfully outdated. The 8-inch screen doesn’t even support Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, though Alexa integration is new for this year, and Lexus’s app lets you interact—to a degree—with the GX via smartphone. 

2021 Lexus GX
 The GX’s dash interface is like a time capsule from 2010, with dated fonts and finishes, but everything is intuitively laid out and clearly labeled. And as much as the laggy infotainment could use an update, it’s still better than the touchpad seen in some other Lexus models.  Jen Dunnaway

Tech shortfalls notwithstanding, this cabin is plenty comfortable. The front seats are sumptuously contoured, and the Luxury trim’s semi-aniline leather is baby-smooth—though the “NuLuxe” leatherette of the other trims is more durable and almost as nice, and comes in the same jewel-toned palette as the higher-trim hides. Second-row seats slide and recline, are available heated, and can be optioned as independent captains’ chairs and their own set of climate controls. The only undesirable seats in the house are in the cramped third row, which offers few amenities and is best suited to small children.

Cargo space is tight as well, again due to the packaging constraints introduced by full-frame construction. The GX’s total cargo capacity is only 64.7 cubic-feet with all rows folded, trailing competitors like the Land Rover Discovery (74.3) and Mercedes-Benz GLE (74.9). With all seats in place, there’s hardly room to fit much more than a few cereal boxes behind the GX’s third row. Moreover, the giant side-opening rear door, hinged on the passenger side and optimized for right-hand drive markets, is a hassle to maneuver around. A clamshell opening like the BMW X7’s would make more sense.

One area where the GX decidedly doesn’t lag behind is in advanced driver assistance tech. Like all Toyota/Lexus products, it offers a full suite of standard assists, including a pre-collision system with pedestrian detection, adaptive cruise control, automatic highbeams, lane-departure alerts, blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alerts. This isn’t the bleeding-edge tech you see on new luxury SUVs—there are no augmented-reality views or quasi-autonomous assists—but what you do get is comprehensive and competent. 

Shared with its global Toyota counterpart, the GX’s massive side-opening rear door seems neat—until you realize it opens on the wrong side. There’s very little cargo space with all the seats in place, but an optional powered third row folds the rearmost seats flat with the push of a button.  Jen Dunnaway

Ultimately, this is the core of the GX’s enduring appeal: it may not be the most modern package, but the features and functions that consumers want are mostly here, and all are easy to operate and understand. After all, the greatest benefit of the GX’s hokey infotainment system is that it isn’t Lexus’s newer touchpad-guided interface, a system almost universally disliked. 

Indeed, with luxury automakers turning to increasingly elaborate party tricks in an effort to outdo each other in features and tech, the GX’s throwback straightforwardness is refreshing. Layer in the fluffy-riding V8 grunt of a traditional luxury SUV and a healthy dose of legitimate off-road capability, and it’s little wonder that 2020 was the GX’s strongest sales since its North American debut. 

Another thing you don’t see every day, at least not under the hood of a midsize SUV: a naturally-aspirated V8 engine. With even today’s big pickups moving to turbocharged V6s and smaller diesels, the GX’s fun but thirsty mill can’t be long for this world.  Jen Dunnaway