Sure, she's a dancing hippo, but she's light on her big feet and well turned out.
A jet-lagged, carb-loaded mind is wander-prone, so while the Lexus rep described how the cross-linked variable-rate shocks use a spring-rate valve to help limit dive, squat, and roll in the new LX 570, improving its dynamic handling, I daydreamed first of hippopotami in ballerina skirts, then of the Rubenesque Motormouth Maybelle dancing to "Big, Blonde, and Beautiful" in the musical adaptation of John Waters's "Hairspray." This largest Lexus has no more business vamoosing through chicanes than it does scaling 45-degree slopes, fording two-foot-deep streams, or straddling nine-inch-tall rocks, and yet it's capable of doing all the above.
In fact, it seems to have been optimized for such bushwacking, with innovations like Crawl Control (think three-speed downhill-assist that also works uphill), Active Height Control (which can tip-toe three inches above or kneel camel-like 2.4 inches below normal ride height. "What percentage of your buyers go off-road?" a colleague asks. "Um, I don't think we have numbers on that," the presenter dodges. Later we tackle ranch trails carved to showcase the LX's 24-inch chassis articulation (the max one wheel can deflect without another leaving the ground) and are impressed.
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