The platform features short overhangs with the wheels pushed out to the corners. The wedge-shaped format has a conspicuously low prow, and in 2002 the hood has grown a cosmetic bulge down the center to suggest power, which it does, especially from the driver's seat. Creased lines on the hood flow steeply down from raked A-pillars to a familial trapezoidal grille; in 2002 there are three horizontal bars, one less than in 2001. It is ringed with chrome and bordered by jewel-like HID headlamp clusters. Within the air dam, there are round halogen foglamps shielded behind trapezoidal composite lenses.In the rear, there are subtle changes; the taillight housings are smoked gray on dark-colored cars, and chrome on light colors. There were some eye-catching new Lexus colors introduced on the IS 300 in 2001, and in 2002 there are more, making a total of nine.
The three rear windows on each side of the SportCross are a bit odd, the back two crowded, as if they're an unsolved design problem. Behind the rear door window there's a non-opening triangular window that looks like an old-style vent window, and behind that there's a another one shaped like a triangle/trapezoid, which neither looks in nor out on anything, and is outlined by a thick black band inside the glass where it fits against the car's interior.