New Car Review: Lexus GX460

15 years as a professional TireKicker (automotive journalist) and there are still things to learn.

When I got the Lexus GX460 for a week, I thought it was a spectacularly dumb design for one thing...the tailgate. The window would open upward, but the whole assembly didn't swing up and the gate below the window wouldn't swing down. Drove me nuts. Why would Lexus build a $60,000 SUV and make you load the cargo compartment from the rear seat?

A few hours later, my teenage son walked up to the GX for the first time, and opened the door out to the side.

Duh.

I could cut myself some slack and say it's an unusual, if not unique design for a rear door on a big SUV, but for many years I owned a Suburban with barn doors, so I really have no excuse.

Why am I telling you this? Because it's the only thing I could find wrong with the GX460...and it wasn't.

New Car Review: 2012 Infiniti QX56

The 2012 Infiniti QX56.



You are looking at a thing of beauty.

It's just behind that hulking SUV.

It's the Eastern High Sierra of California, where I was fortunate enough to grow up between the ages of 9 and 18. Some of those mountain peaks top 14,000 feet...especially dramatic since the Owens Valley floor is only about 4,000.

I have fond memories.

Now, about the hulking SUV.

It is the Infiniti QX56. It spent years as simply a gussied-up version of the Nissan Armada but has, in its latest iteration taken things well beyond that. It's as though Infiniti got caught in a time warp and decided an '02 Lincoln Navigator was its benchmark.