Toyota Crown Features, Photos and Videos

The Toyota Crown (Japanese: トヨタ・クラウン, Toyota Kuraun) is an automobile which has been produced by Toyota in Japan since 1955. It is currently a line of mid/full-size luxury sedans primarily aimed at the Japanese market and sold in other select Asian markets.

Introduced in 1955, it has served as the mainstream sedan from Toyota in the Japanese market throughout its existence and holds the distinction of being the longest-running passenger-car nameplate affixed to any Toyota model, along with being the first Toyota vehicle to be exported to the United States in 1958. Its traditional competitors in Japan and Asia have been the Nissan Cedric/Gloria/Fuga and the Honda Legend, along with the defunct Mazda Luce, Isuzu Bellel and Mitsubishi Debonair.

Available at Toyota Store dealers in Japan, the Crown has been popular for government usage, whether as a police car or for transporting government officials. It has also been popular with Japanese companies as company cars along with use as a taxicab. While a base Crown was available for many years aimed at the taxicab market, the increasing opulence and price of the Crown line led to the creation of the Toyota Comfort in 1995 as a more affordable alternative. Outside Japan, the larger Lexus LS took over the role of Toyota's flagship sedan in 1989 in the company's global lineup.

In North America, the first through fourth generations were offered from 1958 through 1973. It was replaced with the Toyota Corona Mark II. The Crown has also been partially succeeded in export markets by its closely related sibling, the Lexus GS, which since its debut in 1991 as the Toyota Aristo has always shared the Crown's platform and powertrain options. Later models of the GS and Crown have taken on a very strong aesthetic kinship through shared design cues.

The Crown's history and reputation has given it prominence in the Toyota lineup, as it is one of the few current Toyota models to carry its own unique insignia for the model line with the current Crown having a stylized crown emblem on the grille and steering wheel along with inspiring the names of its smaller progenitors. The Corona, introduced as a smaller companion to the Crown means "crown" in Latin and was initially exported as the "Tiara", while the Corolla took its name from the corolla ("small crown") in Latin. The Camry's name is derived from the Japanese phrase kanmuri (冠, かんむり) meaning "little crown" and the Toyota Scepter took its name from the sceptre, an accessory to a crown. The Avalon (the Crown's North American counterpart), while not named after a crown, is named after a mythical island from the legends of King Arthur.

Toyota's "Discover Crown Spirit Project" is a program in which Japanese Toyota dealers fully restore instances of every generation of the Crown to show that even the oldest Crown still works.

The Crown was exported to the United States from 1958 to 1973. Exports to Europe began in 1964 with the first cars going to Finland. Other European countries which saw early imports of the Crown included the Netherlands and Belgium. Canada sold the Crown from 1965 to 1973. The United Kingdom was another market until the early 1980s. It was also exported to Canada for a few years—1965–68. Australia was another important export market for the Crown—to the extent that it was manufactured there from the mid-1960s until the late 1980s using many local components. The current island nations of Aruba and Curaçao in the Southern Caribbean also imported the Toyota Crown starting from the second generation (S40) in 1965 in Curaçao up until importation of the 10th generation (S150) was discontinued in 1998 due to the high price and low demand combined with the introduction of the Lexus GS series.

The Crown was introduced in 1955 in Japan to meet the demands of public transportation. The Crown was intended for private purchase, while the Master served in a commercial form as a taxi, both with the same 1.5 L Type R engine used on their previous car, the Toyopet Super. The front doors open conventionally, and the rear doors are "suicide doors", a feature also utilized on the Toyota AA, Toyota's first car. Small engine displacements were used to keep the vehicle affordable, as the Japanese Government began to impose an annual road tax to help develop and maintain a national transportation infrastructure in 1950. The appearance of the Crown shows some similarities with the European Ford Versailles and Simca Vedette.

The Crown was much more popular than the Master due to the more compliant suspension of the Crown, and while the Master was intended for taxi service, the Crown was more accepted by the market over the Master, and more Crowns were sold into taxi service than the Master. The Crown was designed to replace the Super but Toyota was not sure if its independent front coil suspension and its suicide type rear doors were too radical for the taxi market to bear. So the Super was updated, renamed the Master and sold in tandem to the Crown, at Toyota Store locations. When sales of the Crown proved worthwhile, the Master was discontinued in November 1956 after being in production for only one year, and production facilities for the Master were transferred to the Crown. While the Master was discontinued the commercial vehicle based thereon, the Masterline, continued to be offered (utilities, wagons and vans) until 1959. A six-door wagon known as the Airport Limousine was shown as a concept car at the 1961 Tokyo Motor Show. It did not go into production.

In December 1955 the Crown Deluxe (RSD) was introduced, a posher model equipped with a radio and heater as standard. The initial RS model received a cosmetic update in 1958 to become the RS20, now with hooded headlights and a single-piece front windshield. In October 1959 Japan's first diesel-engine passenger car, the Crown Diesel, was introduced. Its C-series engine only had 40 PS (29 kW). In October 1960 the 1.5 L R engine was complemented by the larger 1.9 L (1,896 cc) 3R engine for a model called the RS30, originally only available in the Deluxe version. The 1900 was also available with the new two-speed Toyoglide automatic transmission. In April 1961 a Crown Standard 1900 was added.

Its coil and double wishbone independent front suspension was a departure from the leaf sprung beam axle front suspension used on most previous models but was similar to the independent front suspension used on the 1947 Toyopet SA. The live axle rear suspension was similar to that used on most of the previous models (unlike the trailing arm rear suspension used on the SA). Taxi versions were produced and beginning in March 1959 commercial versions of the vehicle were also available, as an estate wagon and a three- or six-seat coupe utility. These took over the "Toyopet Masterline" name in the Japanese domestic market, but usually received "Crown" badges in the export. The "Crown" name was previously in use by the Imperial limousine manufactured by Chrysler in the early 1950s.

In 1958 it introduced a ball joint suspension. Production of the Masterline pickup started in April 1957 by the former Central Motors.

In August 1957, three Toyota delegates with the intent to establish a sales company in the United States introduced a white and black Crown and Crown Deluxe at a public relations event attended by dealers and the media. Both models were constructed with 50% thicker steel than the average American car at the time and the black Deluxe model was nicely appointed with lots of chrome and luxurious items like a radio, heater and whitewall tires which prompted the press to liken it to a "baby Cadillac". This promising initial showing along with the strong reputation of the Crown in Japan gave Toyota the confidence to pursue exports to the United States despite known high-speed performance issues. As a publicity stunt to demonstrate the car's reliability, Toyota staged a campaign common to American automakers: a coast-to-coast endurance run from Los Angeles to New York. The Toyopet was barely able to limp into Las Vegas before the project had to be called off.

Toyota's first export to the United States began with 30 Crown Deluxes in June 1958 after establishing Toyota Motor Sales USA the previous October, the first directly managed retail dealer (Hollywood Toyota) the previous February, U.S. wholesale and import companies, and a parts warehouse in Long Beach. Toyota also signs up 45 dealers to sell cars in its initial year, growing to 70 dealers by 1960 and 90 by 1962. In the effort to obtain certification from the California Highway Patrol for the sale of the Crown in California, Toyota shipped the cars without headlights and installed General Electric sourced sealed beam units upon arrival which met the required standard for brightness.

Since the car was designed for the muddy, slow, unpaved Japanese roads, it failed the mass urban landscape of the US because of its inability to keep up with traffic on the faster interstate highways, along with stability, noise and vibration concerns. The car was also very rigid and heavy for its size at 2700 pounds. Motor Trend reported "The Toyopet is so rigid that jacking up one wheel at the rear bumper quickly lifted the other rear wheel". They also observed an average of 23.5 mpg combined city/highway for 407 miles. To remedy the performance issues along with the resulting breakage of parts from being overly stressed, Toyota introduced the newer RS22L and the RS32L series Crown with the larger 3R engine and other improvements for high-speed driving in July 1960.

For 1958, Toyota introduced the Crown in sedan form only (Standard and Deluxe) with a base price of $2187. Options included $94 AM radio and $75 whitewall tires. By comparison, an optioned up Crown was $32 more than the base Chevy Del Ray and $10 more than the Rambler Rebel V8 sedan. Total sales for the initial year were 287. For 1959 sales were again limited to only sedan models and despite a price boost to $2329 for the Deluxe model, sales more than tripled to 967 units. For 1960, Toyota added a wagon body style ($2111 for the two-door, $2211 for the four-door) but in the midst of Detroit's Big Three compact cars (Ford Falcon, Chevy Corvair and Plymouth Valiant), sales fell to 659 units. For 1961 the Crown was being sold with the newer 3R engine and alongside the new smaller Tiara model with the Crown's outgoing 1.5L engine. Only the Custom sedan and wagon were offered ($1795 and $2080 respectively). Total sales for 1961 reached only 225 units, trailing off to 74 for 1962, and finally 28 for 1963. Total sales for the Toyopet Crown RS series in the United States is 2,240.

By the end of 1960, Toyota Motor Sales USA had accumulated 1.42 million dollars in losses from lackluster sales of the Crown. To prevent any further loss, all passenger car imports were suspended and new management structures were established to refocus all sales efforts on the Toyota Land Cruiser with profitability expected from selling 50 to 60 per month until the development of a new car suitable for the US market.

In November 2000, Toyota released the Origin, a retro version of the RS series Crown to celebrate 100 million vehicles having been built in Japan.

Due to the introduction of the Corona, the dramatically restyled and enlarged Series S40 was launched in 1962, and saw the introduction of the Custom model. According to the Japanese Wikipedia article for the Crown, the styling was said to be influenced by the recently introduced Ford Falcon in 1960. The front grille approach has a similar appearance to the 1960 Imperial Crown (Chrysler), which speaks to Toyota's aspirations that the Crown be a large, comfortable sedan. The station wagon body style carried over from the previous generation Masterline, but with more attention to the luxurious approach used on the Crown.

Headlights were integrated within the boundaries of the greatly enlarged grille, providing a clean, modern appearance. A 2-speed automatic transmission was introduced, called Toyoglide, with a column shift. A bigger and better car than the previous S30 series, it initially had four-cylinder R-series engines before the addition of the "M" six-cylinder engine in 1965. Deluxe and Super Deluxe models were available with added features. The sedan and wagon were known simply as the Crown while the commercial vehicles (coupe utility, double cab coupe utility (pick ups), and van) were known as the Masterline. There was also a limited run of the sedan known as the Toyota Crown S (MS41S) which featured twin SU style carburettors on the 2.0L M in-line-six engine, sportier camshaft, sports instrumentation, sports suspension, four-speed floor shift, bucket seats, 14 inch wheels, disc brakes on the front and larger drum brakes in the rear.

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