Being a minivan that looks like the lovechild of supervillain Bane and a Wild West Steam train was always going to make the new LM the star of Lexus’s Shanghai stand. But it certainly isn’t the only posh Toyota that’s be grabbing visitors attention. Meet the Lexus RZ Outdoor Concept, a one-off RZ electric SUV that seems as unlikely as a Rolls Royce GT3 car.
Snarking aside, plenty of manufacturers design extreme off-road concepts from ordinary cars and why shouldn’t Lexus going the fun? You might recall that it already has: it showed the Polaris-style ROV buggy in 2021 and revealed the RX Outdoor concept earlier this year. Both of those vehicles are also in display at Shanghai but this is the first outing for the Outdoor RX.
Lexus’s designers have ticked the obvious boxes, adding tough BF Goodrich All-Terrain tires complete with white lettering on the sidewall, KC lights at each front corner and strips of LEDs on the front and roof. Seasoned off-road drivers seem to appreciate matte black trim to help keep sun glare to a minimum, but Lexus just can’t resist a bit of glizt and so has gone for a high-gloss paint back for the nose, hood, roof and trunk instead to contrast with the gold covering the rest of the car.
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There are some genuine attempts to give the Outdoor a chance of not getting covered in scratches should it ever leave the garage, including chip-resistant black paint on the rocker panels and skids plates at both ends. Unlike the Hyundai Ioniq 5, the Lexus RZ doesn’t feature bidirectional charging to power all your camping devices to our knowledge, but we guess you could MacGyver together some kind of pedal-powered charging device using the bikes on the rear carrier if you were desperate and had a Tour de France rider handy.
Under the skin is the same old Lexus RZ 450e that you can buy in Lexus dealerships in North America right now. That means a dual-motor drivetrain developing a total of 308 hp (313 PS / 230 kW) and a 71.4 kWh battery capable of powering the RZ for up to 220 miles (354 km) in standard trim and probably nowhere near as far with those All-Terrain boots doing their best to waste energy.
The Outdoor Concept is just a bit of motor show fun and Lexus has no plans to put it into production. But should it? Leave a comment and let us know.
