Lexus LX 600 Ultra Luxury Deep Dive: Whatya get in a $24,625 back seat?

The Lexus LX 600 Ultra Luxury is the most expensive Lexus you can buy, and it's not even close. The vehicle you see here goes for $133,490, including destination, and there are no options apart from paint. The next priciest Lexus is an LS 500h with some special Haku door trim for $116,035 followed by a loaded LC 500 Convertible at $114,490. In other words, you're looking at the Lexus flagship.

Now, the gap is even more vast between the Ultra Luxury and the next rung down on the LX ladder, the Luxury. It's a cool $24,625,, and almost all of that goes to upgrading the back seat with indulgent features previously seen only in flagship luxury sedans. Let's take a deep dive into everything you get ... which is a lot ... and it's fancy ... very very fancy. 

For your $24,695, you get one fewer seat in the second row. On the other hand, you get one helluva center console and big-time upgrades to the seats that remain. 

In regards to the seats, they are exclusive to Ultra Luxury and beyond their various extra functions I'll go into shortly, they featured exclusive "curved headrests, seatbacks and cushions that gently wrap around the head, hips and lower body ... They are shaped to help maintain a secure posture, while they use of soft urethan with superior absorption performance helps to suppress wanted movement."

The leather itself is semi-aniline as in the Luxury and F Sport trim levels, but uniquely has diamond stitching.

Next, let's mention the touchscreen on that helluva center console since it controls almost everything you're about to see below.

This would be the main menu screen, and you can get an idea about what it controls.

As you can see above, you get A LOT more seat recline. There's 48 degrees to be precise. The seat button also tilts up in the front, which is ergonomically appreciated when tilting the seat back so much (also for those with longer legs).

Because Lexus doesn't want people to load up the cargo area and then realize they can't actually recline their fancy rear thrones, there is a fabric bulkhead erected that drapes from the cargo cover to the seat bases. They connect via three very serious spike things that take quite a bit of effort to remove and replace. I was expected Velcro, but maybe I should've known better? 

As much as this recline is impressive, the passenger-side seat goes one step further.

You can motor the front passenger seat all the way forward and drop down a foot rest. It must be said that I am 6-foot-3 and I could actually take advantage of this feature. That isn't always the case with back seat footrests. 

Note that the front head rest also lowers to provide a clearer view ahead. 

Here are the control screens to move the front passenger seat and then a combination of right rear and front passenger seats. 

You might have noticed above that the Ultra Luxury trim includes rear entertainment screens. I will go into those in more detail shortly, but here's one element tied with the front passenger seat movement. The screen tilts so you can still see it when the seat's motored forward or for your personal height/viewing angle. Much like the footrest below, the screen is moved with an electric motor. Because of course it is. Wait, did I mention all this stuff costs $24,625?

And here is the Display Tilt control on the central screen. 

Back to the seats for a moment. All but the base LX has heated and ventilated second-row seats, but only the Ultra Luxury boasts all these massage options. My mother was particularly impressed by this and she should be. Not only is this something usually reserved for those up front, there are more options than most and they are seemingly well executed. Massaging functions can sometimes just feel like the lumbar adjustment bags randomly inflating, these don't.

Unfortunately, as great as all these extra adjustments and features are, there actually isn't that much legroom in the second row. This is the driver seat pushed all the way back for me, a 6-foot-3 driver. It also isn't that far back by comparison to other vehicles. I had to scoot the seat up in order for someone to sit comfortably behind me. You can also see how tight of a gap there is between my son's car seat and the driver seat. 

This would be the biggest difference in terms of the back seat between the LX and a flagship luxury sedan. There's tons of space between rows in those. 

Every other version of the LX gets air vents on the back of the center console and next to the rear grab handles. The Ultra Luxury adds an extra pair, one above each rear seat, with a design similar to what you'd get on an airplane. But a fancy airplane because the nozzles are metal not plastic.

The Lexus also has these on both sides, above the C pillar and rear quarter panel. It looks like a speaker grate but has the open/close wheel of an air vent. Any one know what this is?

While the LX 600 Luxury and F Sport trim levels get manual sunshades in the rear doors, the Ultra Luxury adds an extra one in the passenger-side rear quarter window. I'm not really sure why it's only on the passenger side since the driver-side rear seat reclines to the exact same degree. It just doesn't have the footstool bit. 

Basically, this is 50% thoughtful.

Here are the tilting 11.4-inch touchscreens that include lovely leather covers to prevent your son from scuffing them with his shoes. 

The blue screen shows the first page of your entertainment options, with a Miracast option on the second page (not shown) that allows you to stream content from devices not made by Apple. The white screen is for audio options, including SiriusXM.

There is an AT&T WiFi hotspot aboard with 3G standard and 4G being network dependent.

The center console features these two doors finished in piano black. Pop the rear door open to reveal a small bin, and the front door to reveal two USB-C charge ports and an HDMI port.

All the LX 600s have a wireless smartphone charger up front ... except the Ultra Luxury. It migrates to the rear center console instead, which leaves me with the question of: can you not have more than one wireless charger in a car?

You can also see here the large storage bin under the console's armrest, which holds the entertainment system headphones, two more USB-C charge ports and a cigarette-lighter-style power port.

Despite all these power options, though, none are a standard 120-volt house-style outlet. This seems like a glaring omission as it limits what you can plug into that HDMI port, such as the Sony PlayStation we installed in our long-term Toyota Sienna. Now, there is in fact a 120-volt outlet in the LX, but it's at a rear-most corner of the cargo area. That's great for blowing up a raft, SUP or some other outdoor adventure inflatable gear, but you'd need to get an awfully long HDMI wire to plug in an entertainment player from back there. It's also not that helpful should you need to plug in a laptop, which shouldn't be unheard of for a vehicle with executive transport potential. 

Nitpicky? Damn right it is, but again, $24,625.

This isn't special to the Ultra Luxury (the Luxury, and F Sport get it too) but I think it's neat. Under the front center console armrest is a refrigerated "Cool box." You can open its double-articulated glovebox from both the driver and passenger side, which isn't unique, but the third button that provides access to those in the back most definitely is. How cool! Pun unintended.

And  here is the cargo area. Normally, with three-row vehicles, I would do a luggage test to see how much I can fit behind the raised third row. Trouble is, the Ultra Luxury is one of two LX trim levels without a third row seat. All those extra second-row functions and adjustability put the kibosh on those. I'm not sure what the base LX trim level's excuse is. 

That means that while the LX Premium, F Sport and Luxury trim levels are seven-passenger vehicles, the LX 600 Ultra Luxury is a four-passenger vehicle. That seems efficient! The base LX has the same 60/40-split bench as the seven-passenger trims and is therefore a five-passenger.

To be fair, the LX's third row is not a place you'd want to spend much time. Furthermore, there would've only been 11 cubic-feet behind that third row when raised, which is theoretically worse than a Mitsubishi Outlander. Yikes. I'd be curious to see if it would do worse than the current third-row luggage test bottom feeder, the Mercedes EQS SUV.

As for what you see here, Lexus says you lose 3 cubic-feet of cargo space with the Ultra Luxury for a grand total of 41 cubic-feet. And that is the GRAND total since those second-row thrones don't fold flat. What you see here is what you get.

So apart from fewer seats and less cargo space, you do get an awful lot for your $24,625. That's on top of the rest of the LX, which is a luxury and engineering touring de force. It truly is a flagship.