Daniel Golson
Lexus has given its body-on-frame GX460 SUV a minor update for the 2020 model year, with the headline feature being yet another new interpretation of the brand's spindle grille. The massive maw now has a really interesting angular 3D pattern, which Lexus says better aligns the GX with the rest of the Lexus lineup. The 2020 GX has standard triple-beam LED headlights with a new design, but the rest of the GX's exterior styling remains the same.
A new Off-Road package is the other standout feature. It adds a 360-degree camera that can also show the view from underneath the car, a transmission cooler, a fuel-tank protector, and what Lexus calls Crawl Control and Multi-Terrain Select. Crawl Control has five different settings to modulate the car's throttle and brakes at low speeds, improving traction over rough terrain, while Multi-Terrain Select is basically a fancy grouping of off-road driving modes.
Rioja Red leather is a new option, as is Gray Sapele wood trim, but otherwise the interior is the same as it was before, with a standard 8.0-inch touchscreen stuck in the center of the aging dash. The 301-hp 4.6-liter V-8 engine also carries over and remains paired with a six-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel drive.
Finally, the 2020 GX gets a handful of now standard safety features, part of Lexus's Safety System+ suite that is standard on all its other vehicles. Lane-departure warning, automatic high-beams, adaptive cruise control, and pre-collision warning with pedestrian detection are all newly standard across the board, having previously only been available on the top Luxury trim.
While Lexus hasn't announced pricing or a release date for the updated GX460, it should go on sale by the end of the year and receive a price hike of around a few hundred dollars over the 2019 model's $53,530 base price. Given that the GX is now a decade old, this facelift is most likely to tide people over until an actually new GX appears in a few years' time.