IMAGINE your boss asked to inspect a massive project that you’d all but completed and told you to tear most of it up and start again. Oh, and you had one month to complete what could take six months or longer. This is exactly what happened to the team behind the Lexus RX.

When Toyota Corporation head Akio Toyoda first laid eyes on the full-size renders of the new RX, he wasn’t happy between the initial drawings and the full-size model, something had gone missing, and Mr Toyoda wanted it back.

The result is one of the edgiest, least conservative SUVs on the road today. It’s bold, angular and overt in every direction, and it’s a definite line in the sand from a company whose relatively conservative design strategy has paid big dividends over its 25-year history.

To be honest, Lexus needed a magic bullet for its once-dominant RX, and not just in the sheet metal department. Its drivetrains have been allowed to date, it’s fallen behind in interior presentation and it’s facing a raft of hot competition from across the automotive spectrum.

Thankfully the much-improved RX is a bit of a winner.

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