- Toyota revealed a new sedan model called the Crown for the Japanese market.
- It’s a rear-wheel-drive luxury sedan offered with either a hybrid and a hydrogen fuel-cell powertrain.
- We won’t get this version of the Crown here, but we do get a different Crown sedan and are soon to get a Crown SUV.
We’re getting more and more acquainted with Toyota’s Crown nameplate in the U.S., as the Japanese automaker is now selling the Crown sedan on our shores and will soon bring a Crown SUV, possibly called Crown Signia, to our market. In Japan, there’s an even wider lineup of Crowns available, and Toyota has just revealed the latest variant that’s referred to as the Crown “sedan type.”
This model is more in line with the Crown nameplate’s traditional form: a large luxury sedan with rear-wheel drive and a conservative design. The new version is a bit more swoopy-looking than Crowns of the past, and it looks similar to the hydrogen-powered Toyota Mirai. It has a long wheelbase and a spacious rear seat that can be optioned with chauffeur-friendly features such as large rear headrests and a sunshade.
The Crown sedan’s standard powertrain is a hybrid setup with a 2.5-liter gasoline engine. Toyota says this is a new setup with two electric motors and a geared transmission, as opposed to the planetary gearset used in other Toyota hybrid models. There’s also a hydrogen fuel-cell version that we assume has a similar setup as the Mirai, though Toyota claims that the Crown has a longer range of over 500 miles on a single tank.
Starting prices in Japan range from the equivalent of around $48,000 for the hybrid up to $55,000 for the fuel-cell model. Toyota will offer the Crown though a subscription service in Japan, but isn’t likely to export it to other markets.
Senior Editor
Despite being raised on a steady diet of base-model Hondas and Toyotas—or perhaps because of it—Joey Capparella nonetheless cultivated an obsession for the automotive industry throughout his childhood in Nashville, Tennessee. He found a way to write about cars for the school newspaper during his college years at Rice University, which eventually led him to move to Ann Arbor, Michigan, for his first professional auto-writing gig at Automobile Magazine. He has been part of the Car and Driver team since 2016 and now lives in New York City.