Lexus is celebrating the winter festive season in its own unique way. Toyota's luxury brand has equipped the Lexus NX, a crossover SUV, with the world's first set of working wheels and tyres sculpted from ice. And this one-off car is not meant to just be a showpiece. It was actually driven down a London street for a little while without any problems!
Fitting a fully-function set of ice-made wheels to a vehicle was extremely challenging, with a team of ice sculpture specialists creating exact scale versions after 3 months of research, design and testing.
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The whole project was undertaken by London-based Hamilton Ice Sculptors, who have 35 years of "world-leading experience in producing innovative and large-scale works". Each 'cool' wheel took 36 hours to produce with 4 sculptors working on one. The entire process involved hand-crafting, using Japanese steel chisels and shaping tools.
The team used softened water for creating the wheels and mimicking the tyres on them, to the "millimetre-perfect finish". The ice wheels were outfitted with acrylic spokes to help them support the weight of the Lexus NX, as well as blue LED lights to make them look stunning.
After being sculpted, the wheels were deep-frozen, stored for 5 days at -30 degrees Celsius before the luxury crossover SUV was driven down a road.
Lexus did not reveal any details about how effective the ice wheels were while being driven or how long they lasted on the road. Also, there's no information on just how fast the car could go while still maintaining some level of control.
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Moving on to the original car itself, the Lexus NX is available internationally with 3 engine options - a 2-litre turbocharged inline 4-cylinder direct injection petrol unit, a 2-litre naturally-aspirated 4-cylinder petrol mill, and a hybrid variant with a 2.5-litre inline 4-cylinder petrol engine mated to an electric motor. The crossover SUV comes in front-wheel drive and 4x4 versions, and competes against the BMW X3, Audi Q5, Range Rover Evoque, etc.
Again, Lexus did not reveal which version of the SUV was used for their ice wheels project.
Here are 2 videos of the Lexus NX ice-wheeled car:
