Impress the neighbors with Lexus Flagship LX570
Driving the Lexus SUV Flagship is always a great way to spend the week and never fails to get the neighbors out asking questions, especially when the price tag is over $100,000. Questions like are they really worth it? What makes them different from a Toyota? But as we have come to find out, the Lexus slogan of “Experience Amazing” is a very true statement, as the designers are always looking for ways to improve on what has seemed to us the perfect SUV.
All of the Lexus line have been built with style and craftsmanship that is second to none. It seems they are always looking for ways to add to the excitement of the driving experience when behind the wheel. Yet we have always felt in control and pampered to the extreme when we are in the driver’s seat.
A large family SUV with three rows of seating and room for seven, the extremely luxurious Lexus LX570 definitely fits into the large category, as there is nothing compact about how it drives or looks. The 570 is basically a very close cousin to the Toyota Land Cruiser but has even more luxury added to that already great platform.
We say this because the engineers have taken all of the great features and climbing abilities of one of the best rock crawlers in the industry and incorporated them into an environment that left us thinking — would we really ever want to take this beautiful piece of automotive design to an place like the red rocks of Moab on an extreme rock crawling adventure? With an $106,000-plus price tag, that may not be where we would end up, but the LX certainly would be up to the task!
However, there is a market out there for an SUV that will go anywhere, and get there in real style and comfort. Our test ride came in just north of $106,000, a price not for the squeamish in the pocketbook. And after laying out that kind of coin, get ready to continue to feed this SUV at the pump as gas mileage was not on the engineers’ list when designing this SUV, as we managed only 14.5 mpg for the week.
The full-size LX570 comes in only one trim level and with only one engine option. Weighing in at 6,000 pounds, it comes with a large 5.7-liter V-8 engine, with 383 horsepower and 403 foot-pounds of torque to get the that kind of weight moving or crawling no matter where the day would take it.
Of course, Lexus did not stop there when designing the ultimate luxury SUV, as they included everything in the four-wheel drive DNA of the LX including the likes of a six-speed sequential shift automatic transmission and an electronically controlled throttle with intelligence. This meant that the vehicle can automatically tell if it is traveling uphill or downhill and puts itself into the proper gear at all times for the best engine performance and will also shift at the optimal moment and do so in such a manner that it is hardly noticeable.
Also included was a crawl control, that went along with all this other technology in the drive department that when engaged would automatically take the LX570 uphill or downhill over whatever obstacle was there with the driver only having to steer the vehicle with the car doing all the rest of the heavy lifting.
Over the last 10 years or so, the LX has not changed much on the outside, with all the great features we would expect to come on a Lexus, including fold-away heated mirrors and the standard hourglass grill that has become a trademark for the brand. The exterior is rugged and yet refined enough to capture the attention of those looking for a high-end ride of this type with an eye appealing design. The addition of LED daytime running lights were a great compliment to the dual-swivel adaptive high-intensity headlamps and fog lights; there were also new LED taillights to round out the exterior.
Inside, of course, nothing was absent that we would have expected from a luxury line like Lexus. The seats were all leather and felt to us more like a very comfortable couch when seated up front. They were both power-adjustable with accents throughout out the cabin made of real wood, of course, and soft touch materials used everywhere we could have thought to rest an arm or place our hand.
Navigation was standard along with the Lexus Enform app for a year that would give out real-time weather and predictive traffic information and would function much like Onstar in an emergency and even help with navigation if needed. The rear seats were also power-adjustable and would slide forward and back, and the third row had a power-folding option with the rear hatch up — a great feature, with the seats folding to the sides of the vehicle with the touch of a button. No more carrying the seats away an finding a place to put them as some larger SUVs require.
Options that were additional to the LX570 were the addition of a DVD player with integrated screens in the rear of each of the front seats with wireless headphones included. There was also the addition of the Mark Levinson audio system that bumped the speaker count up to 19 and was called a reference sound system. In Craig’s world, this would be the best of the best in home audio. And with the unusually quite interior of the LX, it made perfect sense to have a quality sound system of this type. We might as well enjoy the ride as much as possible.
The luxury package — as if there was not enough luxury already — added heated and ventilated front seats and heated second-row seating, along with a cold storage box in the center console to keep drinks cool on the ride. The only problem with it was it needed the car running to stay cool.
If having a vehicle that will go anywhere and get you anywhere no matter what the conditions are is important and you need a lot of seats and want to get there in as luxurious a way as possible, then it is certainly worth a test drive.
Base price: $91,580
Price as driven: $106,755
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