A Brief History Of The Toyota Crown And Some Of Its Best Looking Years
For the 2023 model year, Toyota brought the Crown namesake to the United States for the first time in over 60 years. In addition, the Toyota Crown is expanding far beyond just a model in the company's lineup with the formation of the "Crown" luxury brand, similar to what Hyundai created from Genesis. That being said, the Crown is by no means a new car. In fact, it's the longest-running model in Toyota's history.
After World War II, Japan's automotive industry was left in ruins. In an effort to catch up and compete with Western automotive brands, Toyota set out to produce 100 percent Japanese-made vehicles entirely from in-house development from tip to tail. After a few years of developing and producing models that would lay the foundational work, Toyota introduced the first Crown model in 1955. Since then, there have been sixteen different generations of the Toyota Crown. Let's take a brief look at the changes between them and point out our favorite Crown designs from over the years!
Classic 1950s styling for the gen-one Crown
The first-gen Toyota Crown (or Toyopet Crown) stands out in the lineup as one of the more unique designs. Produced from January 1955 to September 1962, it features some remarkable era-appropriate styling. Rounded fender flares, chrome-surrounded round headlights, and chrome trim clearly take some inspiration from American-made vehicles of the 1950s.
It wasn't just good-looking, though. It was built to be practical and affordable. With a 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine putting out 48 horsepower, it wasn't the most powerful vehicle out there. However, its dual bench seating allowed the transport of six people. Thus, it was exactly what post-war Japan needed in a car.
After the first generation, the styling of the Toyota/Toyopet Crown changed drastically. We'll be quickly running through the rest of the generations to some extent. However, it felt necessary to give a more in-depth look at the one that started it all.
Fourth-Generation Toyota Crown: A Stylish Stunner
The second-generation Toyota Crown brought a boxier and more familiar four-door sedan outline to the Toyota Crown lineup. As one might expect, it got a little bigger. The big breakthrough for the second generation was nearly doubling the horsepower output to 90.
With the third-gen model, Japan's rapidly growing highway system put Toyota's focus on safety, comfort, and improved powers. With power output up to 125 horsepower and the option of a four-door sedan or two-door coupe, the Crown was starting to branch out into modernity. Moreover, it began to depart from its dutiful utilitarian purposes of A to B transport and started to take on a feel of luxury.
However, our next stop on the best-looking entries goes to the fourth generation. Launched in February 1971, the fourth-gen model is an absolutely stunning blend of boxy and round that proudly wears both classic Japanese styling and a hint of Western design. The most outstanding design feature is the body-integrated bumpers that give this car a remarkably modern flare that was ahead of its time.
The fourth-gen Crown wasn't just beautiful, either. It also featured an electronically controlled transmission and an electronic anti-skid brake system. Like the previous models, it was available in both coupe and sedan form. However, the fourth-gen models offered a station wagon variant, too. Unfortunately, this gorgeous model only lasted until 1974.
[Featured image by Charles01 via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY 3.0]
Iconic '90s Japanese Car Styling and Legendary Power Plant
Through the oil crisis of the 1970s, Toyota's shift toward fuel economy saw a new diesel engine added to the fifth-gen Crown to maximize efficiency. Through the Crown's sixth, seventh, and eighth-generation models, its design started to get boxier, its tech advancements kept improving, and it continued its path to luxury.
By the seventh generation, Toyota implemented a dual-overhead camshaft engine. The eighth-generation model, which looks similar to the MX83 Toyota Cressida, got the naturally aspirated version of the iconic Toyota 2JZ under the hood.
1991 brought the next stop on our list of admiration of looks in the form of the ninth-gen Toyota Crown. This generation brought a monumental shift in design to the crown lineup and gave everything a bit of a rounded edge. The iconic fender-mounted marker lights seen on JDM '90s cars really appeal to the nostalgia of models like the Chaser and Mark II.
Perhaps the most exciting part about the ninth-gen Crown is that Toyota offered it with a manual transmission for the first time. With the option of the 1JZ 2.5-liter straight-six or the 2JZ once again, it's hard to imagine wanting a Crown model more than this one from an enthusiast's perspective.
[Featured image by CrownOwner via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY 4.0]
Thirteenth generation: Modern styling meets modern technology
As time rolled on, the Toyota Crown continued to sit at the cutting edge of luxury with a blend of modern technology across safety and comfort features. Sadly, the manual transmission option went out the window with the eleventh-gen models, and the fun fender-mounted marker lights disappeared with the twelfth-gen models.
Now, our final stop on the list of some of the best-looking Toyota Crown models throughout history. The thirteenth-gen models from 2008 to 2012 brought Toyota's staple subtle luxury styling into the modern era. Speaking of modern, it was also the first Toyota Crown to offer a hybrid drivetrain.
The fourteenth-generation Crown models kept similar design cues and offered two V6 powerplants, the same 2.5-liter hybrid drivetrain as the hybrid Camry, or a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder.
The fifteenth-gen model brought another styling update without anything too drastic. Mechanically, though, introducing a 10-speed transmission mated to a 3.5-liter V6 hybrid drivetrain truly showed the Crown's pursuit of implementing modern tech. Launched in 2018, the fifteenth-gen lasted only until 2022.
The Toyota Crown as we now know it
That brings us to the current Toyota Crown. The sixteenth generation has arguably the biggest styling departure through the entire history of the model's lineage. If nothing else, one could certainly call it controversial.
The Toyota Crown "crossover sedan" certainly brings opinions from folks who see it. Oddly, the body style suits typical sedan standards, but it looks like it's got a lift kit straight from the factory. It's available with a 2.5-liter hybrid drivetrain or a 2.4-liter turbo four-cylinder. Overall, though, its styling and tech have stayed true to the continuous growth of the Crown namesake for nearly seventy years.
This Crown is only scraping the surface, however. It is the only Crown model sold globally at the moment. The Crown lineup also features a luxury sedan and an SUV in Japan. The JDM-only sedan looks like a far truer progression of the fifteenth-gen models and we think it would be amazing to have it stateside. As other Toyota models like the Century have shown, the company doesn't seem to like sending America the cool luxury Toyotas. Likely, this is to prevent any internal competition with Lexus.