TOKYO, Jan 30 — During a media event preceding the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona sports car endurance race, the VP of Lexus product planning and strategy revealed that the company is considering bringing the high-performance F-badge to crossovers and SUVs.
On Monday, according to Motor1, Lexus Executive Cooper Ericksen announced that the company has been actively toying with the idea of bringing a crossover or SUV into the F-performance world.
In fact, executive VP and chief engineer of Lexus UX Chika Kako went as far to say that “the brand's smallest crossover ‘has potential' to join the F family as a high-horsepower gasoline electric hybrid,” but they're still weighing whether or not on-road performance is more valuable than off-road performance.
Considering that this new genre of model would compete against the likes of the BMW X2 M35i or Mercedes GLA45, there's a great deal of power that Lexus would have to bring to the table, considering that the most recent UX luxury crossover has a horsepower of 160 while the BMW and Mercedes iterations measure up to 306hp and 375hp, respectively.
Then again, Ericksen simply stated that this potentially F-branded SUV or crossover is just the subject of “active conversation;” the F nomenclature may be reserved for Lexus coupes and sedans. — AFP-Relaxnews
