All good things come to an end, and in the case of this Lexus UX200 F Sport project car, that time is now… After Super Street put nearly 16,000 hard-fought miles on their subcompact luxury SUV/crossover, their loan is up, but it wasn’t without a few victories and more than enough eyebrow raises.
So why in the hell would Super Street mess with a UX? Well, for starters, it was a brand-new Lexus model that’s not exactly geared to the rich ’n famous or to grandma ’n grandpa. It’s a small SUV tailored toward young professionals and couples, which aligns up quite nicely with 30- and 40-somethings like this author. While the UX isn’t intended to be anything fast or a baller vehicle to brag to your car buddies about, its design and intention is to offer everyday comfort, modern style, and luxury all at an affordable price. In fact, since its launch, it’s the cheapest new model Lexus you can get off the lot, with the 2020 model starting at $33,325.
So the relevance is there, and after a full year of campaigning the UX, we couldn’t have been more pleased with how frickin’ awesome it was to commute with on a daily basis and embark on a handful of weekend road trips. But of course, being Super Street editors, we couldn’t let anything go stock for too long. And since the last few Toyota/Lexus project cars were lowered and catered for the bright lights of the SEMA show, we decided to flip the script and create a more adventure-seeking UX by performing a few relatively simple modifications.
How to Make the Lexus UX Closer to Off-Road Capable
Step 1: Raising/Lifting Suspension
The overall goal for our UX wasn’t meant to be a full off-road, rock-climbing warrior. It still had to handle daily driving duties and we also didn’t feel it required the need for a very serious lifting suspension from the likes of King. With that said, the UX dances on the border between a hatchback and small SUV, so to give it a little more clearance as to not hit tall curbs, H&R developed a set of Adventure Raising springs which we installed while still retaining the OEM struts. The result was a factory-like ride while giving us a 1.0-inch front and 1.2-inch rear lift. Doesn’t sound like much, but this simple bump in height was a night and day difference in terms of overall look and helping the UX feel more like a proper SUV.
Step 2: Beadlock Wheels and All-Terrain Tires
With the suspension out of the way, the next order of business was wheels, and we knew we wanted something a bit more beefy and rugged than the 18×7-inch stockies. With luck on our side, RAYS Japan released a new beadlock wheel intended for Jeeps and SUVs labeled as the Team Daytona M9 at the same time we acquired the UX. Perfect timing, right? So last summer, our UX became the first North American vehicle to rock the M9s in 17×7-inch size with a black/smoked finish.
Tires proved to be the tougher challenge. With limited wheel wells, there wasn’t much in the all-terrain market that would fit. After some math homework, we were able to sort out that the 225/65R17 Yokohama Geolandar M/T G003 was our only option—and not a bad one, considering this is one of the most aggressive and state-of-art off-road tires in the market. Admittedly, the tires rated narrower than the factory all-seasons, but the benefits of large unidirectional tread blocks and sidewall armor allow it to take on the tough, muddy and rocky trails without batting an eye or worrying about a flat.
Step 3: Accessories!
As you can guess, there’s not a whole lot for the UX in the aftermarket, so we pretty much hit a dead end once we installed the H&R springs, RAYS wheels, and Yokohamas. Everything else would have to be custom or one-off, so we reached out to a local off-road specialist Armordillo. Armordillo has become extremely popular in the truck world with bolt-on racks and bars of all types, and it outfitted us with two different roof racks—the latest rack as photographed at Big Bear Lake is the VX roof rack/basket which is universal and looks quite cool if you ask us. Adding to the front-end is an AR Series bull bar which features an integrated skidplate. It required some modification to fit but matches the front-end of the UX quite nicely and adds some much needed menace to the overall character of the build. We didn’t quite get a chance to ram or bump anything, but the integrated light bar proved to be quite useful navigating the dark trails and canyon roads of Big Bear at night.
Lastly, the cases on top are from none other than Pelican. Weatherproof, accident proof, crash proof, idiot proof—these are the best in the game and every photographer and videographer we know uses them to store their precious gear. For our Big Bear adventure, we also strapped a Pelican soft cooler to the roof rack. It was probably the nicest cooler we’ve ever tested, and did its job keeping our Coronas and carne asada cold, but it also looked pretty sick and is something we’re going to bring every event from now on.
Not your style—or do you dig our off-road-looking UX?
It’s extremely tough trying to mod any vehicle that just hit the market. We were one of the first folks in the U.S. to pick up a UX, and as you can imagine, when we called up every shop we knew, no one had parts, and most didn’t even know what Lexus model we were talking about. But we were up to the challenge, noticed a trend in the number of off-road/overland-themed vehicles over the last few years, and decided to take a risk with this project. If you dig it, thank you! If you don’t, thank you, too! Project cars, while ultimately intended to make something faster, cooler, and/or more functional, are also meant to be creative, to inspire, and to engage. We probably wouldn’t build an adventure concept like this again right away, but we did successfully test the waters, learn a few things. and enjoy a few kickass adventures to Death Valley, Glamis, and Big Bear.
Special Thanks
Big, big thank you to Young, Melody and the rest of the team at Auto Tuned, our primary build partners for Super Street’s UX. Couldn’t have done it without you guys! Mikey and Roger at Armordillo, many thanks for taking on rack and bar project before SEMA (even though the car didn’t make it to SEMA). Thanks to Roland at H&R Springs for believing in the project and shipping out a set of Adventure Raising springs from Germany for the project early in its development. Thanks to Wakana at RAYS and Steve and Rowie at Mackin Industries for giving us the opportunity to be the first cool kids on the Team Daytona M9 wheels in North America. And thanks to Pelican Cases for making the best damn cases out there, especially for keeping all our expensive camera gear safe and throwing us the dopest cooler for our Big Bear adventure.
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Source: WORLD NEWS
