CGI Lexus ‘GZ’ Takes Over From GS, It's the Toyota Crown’s Ritzier CUV-Sedan Sibling

It is easy to see the shifting consumer preferences now favor the incredible rise of crossovers, SUVs, and trucks. I am not sure if it is entirely the paying folk’s fault for that, as anyone can easily imagine automakers are smiling gladly at the thought of heftier profits coming from more expensive high-riding sales.

Besides, at least in the U.S. market, carmakers have willingly cut ties with some of the passenger car segments – probably just to make sure people do not go back to the old, traditional ways of driving a sedan, sports car, station wagon, or minivan. True, some segments are also feeling the heat more than others.

Classic four-door sedans, for example, are not what they used to be, for sure. But many think they should not suffer the same fate as MPVs, which went from the brunt of soccer mom/hockey dad jokes to being almost forgotten, with a few exceptions. Instead, even some OEMs believe that saloons could morph a little into more practical instances of their former selves, like a five-door liftback treatment with better access to the trunk – as opposed to the traditional four-door body style.

Toyota, for example, has even taken things a step further with the return of the sixteenth-generation Crown nameplate to America, where the S235 model is now sold as a crossover-sedan. The novel mix tries to reconcile the love for increased ride height with folks who still have a passion for the traditional body format. Plus, it’s a hybrid with great mileage and it also starts from less than $40k.

Of course, since it’s a novel introduction, no one can tell for sure if it is going to be successful. Alas, some folks are a bit too impatient to wait and see if the model’s popularity warrants a sibling. And it’s easy to take matters into their hands or, rather, at the tip of their CGI brush when it comes to the imaginative realm of digital car content creators. As such, here is the virtual artist better known as Theottle on social media, who has decided the S235 sixteenth-gen Toyota Crown crossover sedan shouldn’t be left alone by Lexus.

Thus, after the ‘new’ BMW 1 Series Sedan rendering that imagined a more affordable alternative to the 2 Series Gran Coupe, here is also a much larger but equally posh ‘Lexus GZ’ sibling for the 2023 Toyota Crown crossover-sedan. The pixel master thinks it could be a great fit to replace the defunct Lexus GS mid-size executive car (1994-2020) and hopes the premium Japanese carmaker will join “the high-riding liftback sedan segment” with this indirect CGI successor.

During the author’s latest behind-the-scenes making-of video (embedded below) it is quite easy to see the sources of inspiration. So, the base was represented by an unsuspecting Toyota Crown and then the CGI expert spliced on top of the crossover-sedan body a lot of angular sheet metal taken from the $59,650 Lexus RZ 450e battery-powered compact luxury crossover SUV. In the end, I am not entirely sure if the artist also imagined the ‘Lexus GZ’ as a fully electric vehicle, but it sure would take full advantage of the Direct4 dual-motor, AWD configuration with 308 hp, right?