New Toyota Crown Debuts This Week—and the Tease Begins
The Toyota Crown is, in Japan, an upmarket nameplate. Long a sedan, it recently became available in SUV form—based on the current Highlander three-row crossover—and, per a Japanese Toyota website, is about to turn over a new leaf. On July 15, Toyota promises a new Crown will appear, but as for what form this Crown will take, the automaker's offering precious little to go on besides a few cryptic hints and a new YouTube teaser with flashes of the new car.
Here's what the website—with the url ending in "newcrown2022"—says when you first open it: "Sedan? SUV?" Before an animation replaces that cryptic text with "Discover your Crown." A countdown timer at the bottom of the page notes the wait until the official reveal on July 15, 2022.
We could understand if you have no idea what to make of the sedan/SUV question, whether that means the Crown will be available (again) in both forms, or whether it hints at some new direction. The internet seems to think the lifted car pictured at top is the new Crown, which would make some sense given the sedan-UV tease on Toyota's site. The images of this bizarre car-SUV mashup were recently patented by Toyota, and we found them on Japan's patent database.
With Toyota's release of the video above, the patent images seem confirmed. The glimpses of the Crown's headlights, taillights, and other details in the YouTube clip seem to jibe with those in these patent filings.
We'll find out for sure later this week when the new Crown is unveiled, and whether the model will finally make it to the U.S. market, a move hinted at through Toyota's trademark of the name here.
This story originally published July 6, and has since been updated to reflect new teasers and previews from Toyota.
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