This SEMA Lexus GX Has Armored Doors and Thermal Cameras

A Lexus GX 550 with ballistic-armored doors, thermal cameras and 40-inch tires is on the floor at the 2026 SEMA Show in Las Vegas.

The truck is called the MTN 550 Recon, and it comes from Mountain Yotas, the Colorado shop that also brought a Tacoma on portal axles to this year’s show. The shop has turned the three-row Lexus into something closer to a military support vehicle than a luxury SUV while leaving its twin-turbocharged 3.4-liter V6 untouched at 349 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque.

Carscoops detailed the build on November 2, and the hardware under it follows the shop’s Tacoma almost piece for piece. Custom black-anodized 74Weld portal axles lift the hubs at both ends of the truck, billet upper control arms and billet rear links replace the factory pieces, and Fox Live Valve shocks sit at all four corners. The 40-inch Mickey Thompson tires are mounted on forged beadlock wheels, and a Hardblock 4×4 front locker joins the GX’s standard center and rear locking differentials, so all three can be locked at once.

Above the axles the list keeps going. Custom steel bumpers at both ends open up the approach and departure angles and carry a Warn EVO winch and LED driving lights, with more lights on a custom steel roof rack, and stainless steel fender flares, rock sliders and full-length skid plates protect the body. A pair of stainless snorkels feeds the V6 through deep water, and the exhaust exits at the side through a stainless system. CarBuzz, which saw the truck on November 5, said the auxiliary lights and cameras on the rack and bumpers ride on actuators controlled from inside, and that some of the cameras are thermal night-vision units.

The cabin is where the Recon name earns itself. Carscoops described Italian leather and Alcantara in black and red with red contrast stitching, a Rolls-Royce-style starlight headliner, and a console in the roof for the lights and a roof-mounted Starlink terminal. CarBuzz added that the lighting and camera controls are built into the driver’s sun visor with a screen and toggle switches, that there is a biometric safe, and that the door panels carry ballistic armor. Neither outlet gave a price or a lift figure, and Mountain Yotas has not said whether the truck is a customer car or a shop demonstrator.

The SEMA Show runs November 3-6 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The Toyota Report Take

Lexus has spent two years telling the world that the GX 550 is the real off-roader in its lineup, and the Overtrail trim is a good one, but this is what it looks like when a shop takes that claim literally. Portal axles and 40-inch tires on an independent front end are the serious part, and the fact that Mountain Yotas built the same package for a Tacoma and a GX in one SEMA cycle tells me the 74Weld kit has become the default answer for big tires on Toyota’s new trucks.

The armor and the thermal cameras are theater, and I would not pretend otherwise. What is not theater is the engine. The shop left the V6 alone because it did not need to touch it, and I would like to see Lexus notice that a stock GX powertrain is now being asked to turn 40-inch tires at a trade show. An Overtrail with a factory lift and a 35-inch tire would sell, and this truck is the argument for it.