2025 Lexus GX 550 Overtrail: Detailed review – 0-100 & POV test drive

I reckon this is one of the coolest vehicles Lexus currently offers. It's the GX550 Overtrail variant. It's a hardcore off-roader, similar to the Toyota Prado Altitude. I like it because it's got some character, it's got some personality. Especially in this colour, it kind of looks like a, you know, Jurassic Park special. Various enhancements to help off-roading, including these Toyo Open Country all-terrain tyres, 33 inches. Chunky sidewalls there so you can rip through the mud, which we'll do later on. It's also got the electronic kinetic dynamic suspension system, similar to the Toyota Land Cruiser 300 series, as well as a centre and rear differential lock. You've also got the pop-out, well, opening rear windscreen, so you can just chuck things in the back without lifting the whole tailgate, power tailgate of course. I wonder if it'll let me open it while the window's open. That's pretty clever actually. If you've got the window open and you're, you know, in an underground car park or something, the tailgate won't actually lift up. In the back, you've got a nice big boot. It doesn't have the step like the Prado in seven and five-seat form. That's because the Prado is a mild hybrid and the battery is under there and they've had to prop up the floor, whereas this doesn't have to worry about that. It's just got a twin-turbo V6 petrol, which I'll get to in a second. And you can't get this in seven-seat form, at least in Australia, but you've got the remains of a seven-seat layout with cup holders and charging ports in the back anyway. Really practical vehicle, but I just don't like this big step thing or whatever you want to call that, plastic shroud that goes over the transmission tunnel there, because it means the person in the middle has to jam their foot up there and, you know, if you've got a decent-sized foot, you're going to be right up against the end of the console, the back of the console. You do have climate control there and a couple of USB ports. Got a flip-down armrest with some cup holders and then bottle holders in the doors as well. You might not be able to see it on camera, but there's some green trimming spread around the place. It's quite nice. It actually looks very subtle. It's not, you know, standing out and look at me, but I really like it. It just gives it kind of a unique touch. I don't know if that's standard with this colour or if you... Imagine if you've got a white one or something like that with all the black trimmings and then those subtle green elements inside. I reckon that would be really cool. And then inside the front here, yeah, very practical again. Cup holders, wireless phone charging pad when you've got your phone set up properly and then all of your drive mode controls down there. I love the seating position in this because you've just got a really perched-up view, but I like that the window sills are really low. It kind of reminds me of an old Land Rover Defender or something like that where you're just sort of sitting really high and the windows are almost completely vertical as well. And then out the front, like in the Prado, the windscreen is not actually that tall, but it doesn't seem to impact the view. You've got a bit of visibility down the side of the pillar and the mirror there as well, which is great. So you can really see over that blind spot. But yeah, just sitting in here, it does feel entertaining in that it's kind of like a, you know, off-road Jeep-style thing like Jurassic Park or something like that. It just feels active and it has character. I like that. And then up on the dash here, we've got a nice big touchscreen, although the native sort of layout is not that impressive because it's got all this blank space. It's not until you start to go into the menus that it starts to, you know, fill up the screen. But you do have this little button down here, which is always there, and you can access frequently used apps. So I turn the Lane Keep Assist off straight away as soon as I start the vehicle. And that's always there. It doesn't matter if you've got Apple CarPlay or Android Auto going, it's still there, which is great. Pop-up climate settings, but you've still got the climate knobs down here. Good attention to detail as well when you turn it on. A little temperature comes out there as sort of a part of the windscreen. I mean, a part of the touchscreen. Yeah, I think the touchscreen, the graphics are really good. It's just that, yeah, some of the menus, you've just got all that blank space. And then down here on the instrument cluster, you can configure this to show various things. I've got the boost gauge on one side and then my fuel economy on the other side. 12.8. It was averaging around 12.4 before the performance testing, if you're wondering. So 12.4, it's okay, but it does go really well. This is a heavy vehicle, and it's got a lot of power, which I'll get to in a second. So it's going to use fuel. But I think 12.4 is not too bad for the performance, and considering this has centre and rear differential locks and the off-road tyres, that's not too bad. It just has a pretty small fuel tank. If it had a bigger fuel tank, I think that would be better for grand touring or overall touring capability. But yeah, you can swap around these little gauges on the left and the right. So you've got turbo gauge, g-force and all of that, and then you can do the same on the other side as well. And under the bonnet, all GXs in Australia come with a 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 petrol engine, 260 kilowatts, 650 newton-metres, matched to a 10-speed automatic with full-time four-wheel drive. And then, yeah, those locking differentials. We'll go for a drive now. I want to see how it feels compared with the normal variants like the Luxury and the Sports Luxury with the road tyres. Just as a bit of a preview, though, these tyres are a little bit, you know, they don't have as much grip as the road tyres in the wet, like I found just driving around so far. You can go around corners and roundabouts and so on. If you're pushing it a little bit hard, you can kind of feel it does start to understeer a little bit earlier than the regular tyres, as you'd expect. But then these are going to provide better off-road performance. So, yeah, it sort of comes down to if you are going to go off-road or not. If you're not going to go off-road, then, yeah, buy the Luxury or the Sports Luxury because these tyres are going to cost you more. They don't offer as good braking performance, usually anyway. And, yeah, the cornering grip in the wet is not as good as you would expect. But we'll take it off-road and see how it goes. I want to rip up some mud. It has been raining a lot lately. Speaking of which, I've done the performance testing already and I tried to do a braking test. I'll show you the results of the braking test in the wet. This road is extremely slippery when it's wet because there's a lot of rubber down where I do the start and finish. So, yeah, it doesn't brake very well at all, any vehicle. But what I'll do is I'll do some braking tests just down near my house somewhere on a 100km speed limit zone just to give you a bit of an idea. And so you can compare the braking performance with the other variants. Just before we jump behind the wheel, prices start from around $123,000 excluding on-road costs. The Prado Altitude starts from around $93,000 excluding on-road costs. So this is around 30g more. But it's kind of clever of Lexus to introduce this with the V6 petrol engine. So not available in the Prado, at least in Australia. I don't know if it's available overseas, but in Australia, yeah, this is exclusive to the GX. So you are, in other words, paying for that as well. But you do get more luxuries. Is this more capable off-road? Probably not. They're probably about the same, really, because the Prado comes with the disconnecting sway bars and diff locks as well. And, yeah, this has got the diff locks. So it's still going to be pretty similar. Other than that, you just get the added luxuries. You also, actually, worth mentioning, you get a lot of after-sales perks with the Lexus. So they've got concierge services and they've got partnered companies like the airport and so on. You get free parking or whatever. But just check with your dealership to see what you're actually getting. The last time I checked, you get a whole heap of stuff when you go with a Lexus. You don't get with a Toyota. Resale value might be about the same or slightly better. I mean, Toyota's the king of resale value. So it's probably about the same. But, yeah, the particular variants might hold their value just a little bit better than the Toyota versions. Yeah, there's something about this. I don't know what it is exactly. Maybe the character of the interior, the way it's got low window sills. It's fun to drive. It really is. Like, I would love to take this for a big family road trip around Australia. It's just got that character about it. Even the handling is quite good. This platform is, you know, ladder frame, proper off-road, heavy-duty platform. But it handles quite nice. And there's good communication coming back through the steering wheel. So, as I said before, there might be a little bit of understeer around slippery roundabouts in the wet if you're pushing a bit hard. But you can feel it coming through the wheels. So I know when it's going to let go, which is, yeah, not common in a hardcore off-roader like this. Around these big sweeping bends, there's not excessive body roll or anything like that. Like you might get in, and I don't mean to put the Jeep down, but the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. That's, you know, got some sacrifices on the road. But it is a very hardcore off-roader. So, obviously, it outperforms pretty much everything else on the market in terms of a factory vehicle. Whereas this brings a good blend. It doesn't feel out of its depth or, you know, uncomfortable. As in the driver doesn't feel uncomfortable pushing it around bends like this. About the only thing I would change is probably the engine. Like, if it was my pick, I mean. And I know this is not going to appeal to everyone. But I would rather have the 3.3 turbo diesel V6 from the Land Cruiser 300 series in a vehicle like this. Because of the driving style that I have and because of the driving that we do, diesel just makes more sense. And I feel like vehicles like this, they don't really need top-end power. They need low-end torque. Although this does produce 650 Nm, which is awesome. The diesels are 700 Nm. So it's just, I guess, I know the Toyota Lexus has that engine available. So, if I could pick, I would pick the diesel kind of thing, you know. But if that wasn't available, then I wouldn't be complaining. It's just, you'd get better range out of it, better economy, and all that sort of thing. Like, I know 12s is not super high for this style of vehicle, again. And for the performance, which you'll see later on. But with the diesel, I reckon you'd get maybe 9s or something like that. With regular use on country roads like this. I'll just show you the kind of kick-down performance. Slow down to about 40. Full throttle. Yeah, it gets up and goes really well. Actually, I'll show you that again in Sport Plus or Sport S Plus. And see if you can hear that sound coming through the speakers. Full throttle. Yeah, there's this kind of artificial sound definitely coming through. And like with a lot of artificial sounds, it's not perfectly in sync with the engine. So it's kind of, it's one frame out. And it makes it kind of sound stereo. And in my opinion, anyway, it's almost like a vibration sound. Whereas when you've got it in the normal mode, it's just a smooth revving V6. Even though, you know, there's probably not any vibrations there. Well, there's not. It's just the sound that makes it seem like that. I don't know, it's hard to explain. But I'd rather just drive with it in normal mode. Alright, let's check out the off-road performance now. I'm going to try and get up that hill climb in the wet. It's going to be very tricky. But we'll have some fun and see what it can do anyway. Alright, this is about as challenging as it gets. At least for this little hill climb. It's been raining all day and it is very slippery. I've already been up twice. I'm not going to lie. The first attempt, I tried it with just going really slow. And I tried MTS, the mud terrain selection. And it just slid. And I was a bit worried that it would slide so sideways that it would start to go down the hill. And I'd have to quickly hook the steering wheel to get the nose back pointing in the right direction. Before it would, you know, tumble sideways, potentially. But I was going very, very steady. So I'll show you. But the best way to get up here is to give it a little bit of power. And let the wheels spin a little bit. But keep the momentum going. Let's go. I've got the rear diff locked. The centre diff locked. And I'm in low range. And that's it. I haven't touched the MTS, the multi-terrain select button. And I haven't touched the stability or traction control button. But first I'll just show you how I got up here. Keep it going, keep it going, keep it going, keep it going. Feeding the power, feeding the power, feeding the power. And then, yeah, we got up there. That did probably rip up the surface a little bit. I guess that's the good thing about having this petrol V6 engine. You can actually rev it and it doesn't feel, you know, harsh. Like a diesel or something like that. You wouldn't want to be revving it high for too long. Or it doesn't feel right. Whereas this, yeah, that's where the peak power is. And that's where you're getting some use. As I said, though, it's 650Nm. There's still plenty of low-down torque available. There's probably not as much as a diesel. And coming down this bit, it has eroded away a bit. And it really drops down the front wheel. And it causes the back wheel to lift up or extend out. But I find the latest GX, or the Prado GX, it's got awesome wheel travel and flex, actually. So it's, um, they've done a really good job with that. For a factory vehicle, anyway. And, you know, 7-seater or 5-seater luxury family vehicle. It's, um, it's really good. So now we'll try to slow things down a bit. And I'll activate the multi-terrain select. And I'll just show you what happens without getting too dangerous. So I've got auto, sand, mud and rock. I'll put it in mud. That makes the most sense, I think. It is muddy. I'll just take my time. Nice and easy. Same line. And just about here is where it got caught. Feeding a little bit more power, a little bit more power. And it's just spinning. You can see the stability control, traction control flashing. And it's not going to go up unless I really give it some. And it will rip up the tarmac. See, that's with the brakes on and it's sliding with all four wheels. Kind of, um, stationary. You can see the steepness of it. It's almost 30 degrees. It never looks steep on camera, the off-road stuff. It never looks that serious. But it is steep enough to be a little bit scary if I, yeah, as I said, if it started to go down sideways that way, I wouldn't want to be tumbling down, that's for sure. So now I'll try the crawl control or show you the crawl control. You just hit the button once. And I'll just leave it in the lowest speed. Feet off the pedals. It's going to drive up itself while managing everything. And we're still making progress. And we're no longer making progress. So it's stopped there. It doesn't know what to do. That right wheel's flashing, which probably means it's spinning. I'm just digging holes now, basically. Yeah, so that's what I mean. In this situation, you're better off with a little bit of momentum. Yeah, get rid of that. You're better off with a little bit of momentum to kind of skip across that really clay, clay, clay muddy section. You do actually have crawl control available in reverse. And the braking and everything is applied automatically. I don't want to slide into this little ditch over here. But it's maintaining stability for me. So I don't have to worry too much. Just want to get over that side a little bit more. But yeah, you can see it's quite rocky and there's a lot of little stones and stuff. But the top layer has just got this thick mud. And then it's this slippery stuff underneath. So it's just two surfaces just sliding on top of one another. In this case or in this scenario, the MTS and the crawl control, although it is very good and I've tried it in the Prado as well, and it has been exceptional. In this specific scenario, I think you're better off just doing it yourself and just feeding in a bit of power and just keeping that momentum going. But you are going to be churning through and you're going to even bite into your tyres a little bit if you keep driving in this sort of style. We'll go up the right hand side now and I'll see how that goes. I think it should be fine because it is quite rocky. There's not as much of this clay stuff and it's two tracks. You can't really slide side to side. So it should be all right getting up that. Turn off crawl control. Just keep an eye on the angles there. We can see how steep it is. So just nice and easy. Still in low range. I don't have any of the modes activated except for the diff locks. A bit of power. Excellent flex as I said. So the wheels are remaining on the ground, which is obviously where traction is. And yeah, easy does it. I'm not going to go down that because I'm just a bit scared that it's going to slide and I'll potentially tumble down there. I have no doubt that the vehicle could probably do it with a professional 4x4 guy who knows more than me, which is not very difficult. But yeah, I just don't think it's worth the risk. That's done really well actually to get up there in the wet. This is a luxury SUV remember. You can take it out to a nice dinner or whatever and it's a proper quality item yet it will go up stuff like that. I know I keep saying it. It probably doesn't look that steep on camera, but it is very steep and today it is very slippery. So those tires definitely came in handy. I reckon if you tried to do this with more mild all-terrains, you wouldn't go up because it would just spin too much. And if you went up with highway terrains, yeah, I think you'd have to have a very, very clever all-wheel drive system to just even this like it was the center and the rear were locked and I tried out the mud mode and it was just all four wheels just spinning on the spot and it couldn't really figure out what else to do. I mean, there's nothing else to do. So that's why using a bit of momentum actually is what got me up here. All right, let's go out and do the performance test now and see what it goes like. I'm not expecting a huge difference over the normal, the luxury that I've already tested. The tires aren't going to make a huge difference. I did test it in the wet as I said, but that shouldn't make any difference with acceleration. With the braking, yes, but being four-wheel drive, there's no wheel spin or anything to contend with. So it should be fine. The times would probably be pretty much exactly the same in the dry.