My Personal Vendetta for the Lexus RX330

The early 2000s were an interesting time for luxury car manufacturers. Having survived the seemingly inevitable doom of Y2K, luxury car consumers began inexplicably hoarding like pigs, en masse, to the trough of ill-designed and lackluster muck that was the luxury crossover. And the blandest, most lifeless, insipid, dry, and monotonous of them all was the Lexus RX330 (Official car of: Sorry Grandma, we can’t let you back it into any more lampposts.) While the first generation had somewhat of a roughty-toughty appeal and later generations have, uh, “interesting” styling, the second generation car takes the cake for being the most unimaginative blob of thing ever produced by Toyota.

What makes the RX so bad is that, in reality, it isn’t all that bad. Sharing platforms with the Toyota Highlander gave the RX an acceptable chassis, an okay V6, all-wheel-drive, and a high riding position. All attributes of a perfectly adequate vehicle. Lexus engineers were simply tasked with designing an exclusive experience to encase all the core ingredients that Toyota had provided them. But obviously, they couldn’t possibly have been bothered and almost deliberately designed every aspect of the car to bore the consumer. I mean, just look at it…

It’s so nondescript it practically blends in with the background. I like to imagine that Lexus’ styling department simply left a block of their modeling clay out in a heavy rainstorm and said, “that’ll do.” But if that isn’t enough of a yawn fest, just check out the interior…

Wow.

If the exterior didn’t put you to sleep, the interior surely would. There is absolutely nothing interesting or intriguing to redeem itself on the inside, except possibly the sliding center console. (I bet you didn’t know it could do that, and neither do most RX owners). Moreover, to add insult to injury, the RX330 wasn’t particularly well put together. Common issues include tailgates that refuse to open or close, crumbling dashboard plastics, and window trim that simply falls off. On a Lexus!

Despite the RX being possibly the blandest SUV in the history of ever, Lexus seems to have sold a gazillion of the damn things. Because of this unfortunate turn of events, there is no way you will ever be more than rock-throwing distance of at least 3 RX330s. All of which will usually be painted in some nondescript color like “Pewter Topaz.” At least typical Lexus reliability means we’ll be sitting behind these things doing six under the speed limit in the fast lane for decades to come. Great.

However, the RX’s most heinous crime comes from something much more perturbing. The RX330 is the automotive embodiment of a total lack of creativity on behalf of an auto manufacturer, not by mistake or simple oversight, but by choice. By the early 2000s, Lexus realized their customer base and reputation were so solidly established that nothing, NOTHING, could possibly drive customers away. Hence when Lexus designed the RX330, they couldn’t give less of a shit. Lexus invested the absolute minimum amount of effort to get it out in the marketplace and proceeded to ride on the coattails of their previous success simply because they could. So when the RX330 was released, Lexus couldn’t pump out the damn things fast enough. Because no matter how sapless. No matter how mediocre. No matter how stale. People were going to plonk down their hard-earned cash for one anyway. And that’s simply unforgivable.