In a recent media event preceding the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona sports car endurance race, the Vice President of Lexus product planning and strategy revealed that the company is considering bringing the high-performance F-badge to crossovers and SUVs.
According to media reports, Lexus Executive Cooper Ericksen announced on Monday that the company has been actively toying with the idea of bringing a crossover or SUV into the F-performance world.
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The executive Vice President and chief engineer of Lexus UX Chika Kako also mentioned 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.
It is estimated that this new genre of model would compete against the BMW X2 M35i or Mercedes GLA45, which means that Lexus will have to bring a great deal of power to the SUV, 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.