Why did Lexus decide to call it the NX F Sport Handling? Perhaps it rolls off the tongue better than, say, the NX F Sport Accelerating or NX F Sport braking?
The problem with the Lexus NX 350 F Sport Handling, aside from it having a really long name that’s hard to remember, is that in order to provide any real criticism, I have to nit-pick stuff that may only affect me specifically.
Which, I suppose, is pretty good. Like the seats. I’m not going to dump on a car because the seats don’t agree with me, as not everyone is shaped like me. So while these seats seem too high from the deck and tough to get into because of the giant hip bolsters that don’t really do much aside from preventing easy ingress and egress, they may work great for you.
Same for the cupholders. Like, by the time you’re whining about cupholders, you’ve had to dig DEEP for something to complain about. But these cupholders are needlessly small and hard to get actual beverage containers into.
Okay, enough bitching, the rest of this thing is pretty satisfying to drive. Dynamically, it fits into that segment that I think was kind of invented by the Mazda CX-5–SUVs and crossovers that are actually dynamically satisfying to drive. The NX has great steering, brakes with feeling that most track drivers will envy, and chassis control that defies the high center of gravity of the crossover platform. It’s not a sports sedan, but it’s better at being a rewarding driving machine than many so-called sports sedans of just a few years ago.
Plus, you get a sweet hatch and cargo area that holds big stuff, and rear seats that fold down nice and flat to accommodate even more cargo. It’s practically station wagon-esque, and extremely utilitarian with a good liftover and deceptively straight sides and hatch.
It also starts out under $50,000 which—and I can’t believe the auto pricing climate has reached this point—seems surprisingly reasonable for a premium crossover. If the seats work for you, and you can get over those infernal cupholders, it’s worth a look.
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