Growing up, my best friend’s dad, I’ll call him Frank, was an actuary for a large human resources company. When I finally learned what an actuary was, I couldn’t imagine anyone else better suited to the job than Frank. This is a guy who played Sim City and kept detailed notes in a series of notebooks in order to optimize his city.
The family very generously took me to Disney World with them one year, and I got to watch my friend’s dad try to apply the principles of actuarial science to making it the most efficient trip. Does fun equate with efficiency? Not quite, though, in fairness to him, I spent very little time waiting in lines. The flipside of this is that we ate dinner at like 4:15 pm every day.
He was already relatively successful by the time I met him, and as a marker of that success, he bought himself a nice car. That this nice car was a first-generation Toyota Avalon fits with Frank’s whole so-normal-its-weird vibe.
The Avalon is gone, having essentially been replaced by the Toyota Crown. On paper, this is a sensible vehicle that offers a lot of features for only a near-luxury price. It’s build-sheet efficiency achieved in the strangest way possible, which is very Frank. It’s also a car that makes none of the normal choices, which makes it weird in a very me way.
It’s possible the Toyota Crown is the only vehicle that fits in the very narrow ellipse in the Venn Diagram of what he likes and what I like.
[Full disclosure: Toyota delivered this to me with a full tank of gas and a snow brush, which was nice.]
The Basics
Engine: 2.4-liter turbo inline-four hybrid with 61 kW front/58.6 kW rear motors
Transmission: Six-speed ‘direct shift’ eCVT
Drive: All-wheel drive
Output: 340 combined horsepower, 400.4 combined torque
Fuel Economy: 29 MPG city, 32 MPG highway, 30 MPG combined
Base Price: $54,990
Price As-Tested: $55,465 (including $1,135 shipping/handling)
Why Does This Car Exist?
This is an extraordinarily good question and one, realistically, no one will ever be able to give me a good answer for. Was the market clamoring for a successor to the AMC Eagle? Probably not. Is a tall, crossover-like vehicle that doesn’t look like a crossover or come with a hatch a proper replacement for the Camry-but-a-little-bigger Avalon? I don’t think so.
Here’s what Jason got out of Toyota when he went on the launch for the Crown back in 2023:
They did say that their target buyers would be “young empty nesters,” a group that I imagine is composed of people in their mid 30s who set their children free in the woods because fuck it, too much work. I find this kind of a strange demographic, because the car feels far too roomy and big for a couple with no kids. This could easily be a family car, if desired. But, somehow we’ve all decided as a culture that almost everything needs four doors, so with that in mind, sure, young, sexy empty-nesters it is.
I’m glad that Toyota gave it a try. There was once a time when the premium subcompact crossover wasn’t a thing, either, and Buick rebadged a South Korean GM product and basically created an extraordinarily popular segment. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, and Toyota took a shot here.
How Does It Look?
Usually, this is the easy part of the job. Aesthetic judgment is primarily subjective, so there’s practically no way to give a truly wrong answer. The only incorrect judgment would be the absence of a judgment. Do I have a judgment? I am indecisive.
This is the non-two-tone version, and I think it looks good. Kind of? It is proportionally strange, and this strangeness is best revealed in profile, where the we-put-a-sedan-body-on-a-crossoverness of the Crown is most obvious. If you just look at the top of the car, there’s an attractive greenhouse (the DLO, as designers call it) that kinks at the C-pillar. The rear has that strange crease, which is very Lucid Air. The front looks relatively normal in profile.
It’s that space in between the front wheel arch and the hood, and the rear wheel arch and the aft-most window that’s odd. There’s just, like, more space there than should be. It’s so novel in anything that isn’t an AMC product that’s older than I am, I lack the crutch of comparison.
Head-on, I’m on board. It’s modern and sleek in a neo-Toyota sort of way. The rear is a bit busy, but I’m from Houston, so I like a big butt if it can keep a beat. The profile? Huh. I’m gonna need 2-3 months to form an opinion.
What’s It Like Inside?
For all of the chances the Crown takes on the outside, it’s drama-free on the inside. I think the last generation of Toyota interior design was both somehow a little bland and a little busy, and this resolves both by being handsome and clean.
Toyota adopts the basic split two-screen setup that has become the default for most Western automakers. The 12.3-inch touchscreen at the center features the company’s Toyota Audio Multimedia system, which works well enough, but I mostly just used CarPlay.
Credit, also, to Toyota for having an excellent and obvious layout for its steering wheel:
I don’t love the push-pull transmission selector, but I adapted to it rather quickly. What I didn’t adapt to is that I couldn’t find a button to release the trunk. I didn’t want to look it up and gave myself the challenge of locating it. It never happened, so I just had to use the remote:
How Does It Drive?
If this were a crossover, I’d probably be giving it a lot of Mazda-like praise. With 400 lb-ft of combined torque, much of which comes from electric motors, it scoots. The transmission is also a big differentiator here, as it does this with a bit more theater than your typical Toyota hybrid.
That’s because this is the HybridMax powertrain, which is more similar to what you find in the larger crossovers than a Prius. The combo of a MacPherson strut-type front suspension and multi-link rear with a stabilizer bar is also fairly common, although the HybridMax does get slightly larger diameter stabilizer bars.
Again, for a crossover, it handles quite well. In this trim, you’re getting the eAxle out back, so there’s always at least some power going back there, as opposed to the basic hybrid.
Sitting behind the steering wheel, the high seating position makes you feel like you’re driving a crossover, but the car’s center of gravity is a little lower. Also, it’s a sedan. Right? I think. I think it’s a sedan.
For a sedan, it also handles well, but at more than 4,300 pounds, it doesn’t feel like a car. It seems like Toyota is trying to counter this with a steering wheel that’s equally heavily boosted. It works, mostly, but on some twisty back roads in Connecticut, the Crown’s ability to stay between the lines came at the expense of feel and communication. The car did what I wanted it to, but it wasn’t much of a conversation.
That would probably work for Frank. It doesn’t work as well for me.
I guess Toyota looked at what Subaru was doing so successfully with the Outback and thought it should do the same, but in its own strange way.
I Like It, But I’d Probably Like It Better For About $9,000 Less
Frank is a math guy. His life has always been numbers. I’m more of an emotional guy. I am motivated by feelings. That part of me sees the HybridMax as the only one to get, even if my fully decked out version is an uncomfortable $56,600 delivered.
That includes the upcharge for Bronze Age paint, the leather-trimmed seats, and all the rest. It feels nice in the Crown, and yet, no one would see it as a showy or flashy car.
I did go on Toyota’s configurator and built a Toyota Crown Limited with the non-Max hybrid system, and it was only $47,570, even with the extra charge for Supersonic Red paint. That’s $9,000 less in a vehicle that gets 13 MPG better fuel economy in the city than the one I drove.
If I’m buying this, do I care if it’s slower? I don’t think I do. Toyota doesn’t break down Crown sales by powertrain, but it does break it down by bodystyle. The Crown Signia, which looks like a crossover, outsells the sedan by 2-to-1.
I’ll try to get the Signia version in the base hybrid to see if that’s maybe the one for me, although a strange part of me likes the sedan better because it doesn’t look like anything else you could buy.
As a postscript ot this, the next car Frank bought was a Lexus LX470. It’s not a vehicle I’d have bought new at the time, being too large and flashy for my high school tastes. Now? I’d rock one. Perhaps in time we’ll all look back on the Crown sedan the same way we do the AMC Eagle. Time makes weirdos of us all.
All photos Matt Hardigree
I’m weird, this car is weird, and as a result I’ve always had a soft spot for it. What you can’t say about it is that it’s bland or derivative. There’s really nothing else like it on the road and I still do double takes when I see them because they’re not very common. That being said, the design is busy and it definitely has a bit of an identity crisis.
It’s shaped like a sedan, but it’s bloated. The wheels and tires are friggin YUGE. It has a lift for…some reason? The two tone paint options frankly look a bit ridiculous. I think this design looks best in more basic colors, although the metallic copper is pretty neat.
It just has no idea what it wants to be. I think Toyota wanted to make a sort-of-crossover that was actually a sedan because people buy crossovers and they don’t buy sedans. They also claimed that this was targeted at young-ish professionals but the specs say otherwise. The lift and height of this thing make it easy access for the olds.
Anyway, would I buy one? I don’t know. I’m really not sure what purpose it’s meant to serve. The hybrid max is a non-starter because of how expensive it is but the base model is apparently a wholly uninspiring driving experience. I think if you want one that’s probably the way to go. But also…why isn’t it a hatchback?
It’s a big car that’s supposed to be a crossover alternative, so giving it a normal trunk seems like an unforced error. Anyway…I understand why people would rather have the Signia. It’s more attractive and offers the cargo space that this should’ve had. That being said I do respect anyone who goes ahead and buys one of these, because there aren’t a lot of truly weird cars out there anymore and this is one that truly lets its freak flag fly.
It’s a “sedan” for old people that can’t get out of a sedan on their own any more.
It’s a sedan on stilts. The target market is old people who don’t want to squat down to drop into or hoist themselves out of a typical sedan AND don’t want to be seen in an SUV.
I don’t typically like lowered cars but the Crown is a prime candidate for a 1-2 inch drop. I saw one once in the wild with smaller aftermarket wheels, tires with more sidewall and a mild drop and totally looks better.
Looks like 2010’s 5’er GT and DS 5 had a strange kid.
Young empty nesters – like people in their mid 50s? IDK When I get to that age I’ll let you know if this appeals to me. I had kids late though, so earliest i could genuinely have my kids off the payroll would be when I’m like 64? Maybe I’d go for this then, but would I be an old empty nester? Will there be any cars in America besides Trumpwagens?
My college roommate was an engineer and the Toyota Avalon was his vision of a perfect car so this tracks with your Frank story.
For being something sorta CUV-like, they missed a golden opportunity to make that a lift-back rather than just a regular trunk. The sloping rear lines would have made it fairly easy and made much more usable space.
“We have Highlanders right this way, my good DaChicken.”
This is the perfect car for Mercedes wife, still Toyota but plush.
Somehow, this article helped me realize that this is supposed to be a Crown Signia “coupe”. The Crown Signia being a “we-put-a-wagon-body-on-a-crossover”, to borrow your words.
Is that also the one they use in the trucks, where everyone hates it because it doesn’t actually get any better mileage?
I’m going to guess that’s a yes.
It’s wild that Toyota eCVTs are basically the gold standard for hybrid tech, but their non-eCVT hybrids are all terrible.
Wait, eCVT but with discrete gears? That sounds dumb, and also confusing.
The Prius eCVT should be in everything it works for, frankly. It’s smooth, uncomplicated, and durable.
I’m really disappointed that the only way to differentiate a Prius transmission and a Nissan Rogue transmission is with a lower-case ‘e.’ They are wildly different technologies; one will be reliable and the other will reliably fail before 100k miles. My only issue with a CVT is its lack of longevity, which the eCVT solves.
I think this is an error? Toyota has a “direct-shift” CVT that has a launch gear and then switches over to CVT for higher speeds, but they also call the 6 sp in the Hybrid MAX “direct shift”.
There is no “direct shift” eCVT as a launch gear makes no sense for that. And the Hybrid MAX doesn’t have a CVT at all.
I’d like this if the Lexus ES and its vastly better dealership experience didn’t exist.
Exactly. Between this and the ES, I’m going for the ES at around the same price point. Ignoring the badge on the vehicle, the ES likely has better interior materials, gets better fuel economy, and will have a better service experience. Also, I hate the black things they stuck to the bottom of the doors.
The base cloth seats are the most comfortable seats I’ve experienced in years. I really wish it had a Prime PHEV variant. I would get one. I liked it that much
I mean, the interior looks to be of decent quality, but boy of boy is it boring for a 55k car. There’s nothing about it that looks “nice”. This is a car that starts at 42k (which is already pretty high, a 10k premium over the Camry), I’m expecting some serious interior upgrades for 13k, regardless of the powertrain upgrade.
I typically prefer to stay with mainstream brands over luxury, but this is well into Lexus territory, and at least a Lexus dealer will treat you nicely for buying an ES or whatever, versus my… not exactly awesome experiences with Toyota.
The interior looks underwhelming. Acres of (at least visually) hard surfaces. Matte black plastic and (ugh) piano black plastic highlights. The overall forms of the dash, center console, door cards and instrument panel screens are things we’ve seen in dozens of cars already. It’s anonymous, and depending on who you ask, absolutely bland.
My father owns a non-Max Crown.
His criteria when purchasing were as follows:
-Must be a sedan (my mom gets the CUV)
-Must be a hybrid
-Must be AWD
-Must be as nice inside as his previous car, a 2014 Acura TL
-Cannot be premium branded, lest his Scandinavian friends/neighbors/church ladies find him (or worse, my mom when she drives it) “uppity or above their station”. So no Lexus, let alone BMW.
For this fast-disappearing type of Upper Midwesterner, the Crown is perfect. I’m not sure who the rest of the buyers will be though.
I live in a region with similar tastes. Luxury brands are both impractical (dealers are relatively far away) and considered distasteful.
This is the entire reason the GMC brand exists.
“Considered distasteful” reminds me of my late great-aunt, who, as the wife of a successful farmer in Iowa could probably have had any car she wanted, but the most ostentatious she’d allow herself was an Oldsmobile 98. Then, after Oldsmobile went away, she really let herself go wild and she got, as she called it with mild embarrassment, “a Park” (that is, a Park Avenue). A Cadillac? She would never.
Late in life (she died a week shy of her 102nd birthday), her crunchy daughter moved back from Northern California to the Midwest, so her last car, purchased with her daughter’s help, was a Subaru Crosstrek.
High spec Subarus are EXTREMELY popular around here for that same reason. A nicely equipped Outback is considered “class-less” (in a positive way). In a cold climate, a relatively basic AWD vehicle without obvious frippery gives off a “everything I need nothing that I don’t” ethos that sort of embodies the attitudes of the rural northeast.
We have a “Cadillac/GMC/Buick” dealer here that sells plenty of small Buick crossovers, and oodles of GMC trucks and SUVs. The Cadillac side is just there for show though, they hardly sell any because frankly, the only people who can afford them around here are usually driving well equipped Hondas, Subarus and their own dealer’s GMCs.
I generally don’t care for sedans, but I like this one. And I’m glad Toyota builds it. It really is a replacement for the Avalon for folks who want a “near luxury” sedan. Still, if it was for me, I’d spend the extra $3k and get the crossover version.
How is it for NVH? That’s somewhere most Toyota’s aren’t great at, basically need to step up to Lexus for better NVH.
I found it to be fairly similar to the last-gen Camry, which surprised me. I thought it would be better. I still haven’t had a chance to drive the latest Camry, but I expect I would save some money and buy the Camry if I were in the market.
I ended up in a RAV4 Prime, but would have liked to have tried the Signia. That wasn’t available to test drive and I didn’t want to pass on the Prime that had the trim level and package I wanted.
“13 MPG better fuel economy”
I thought this was a mistake. Then I went and looked. I do not understand what is going on with the engineering here. 2 hybrid systems, both with dual electric motors, one with a 340HP combined, the other 236 combined. But that bump in power drops it from 41mpg combined to 32!?! That seems like a steep drop.
I also wonder this about all of the hybridMAX powertrains in Toyota products. Surely a couple of lbs bigger motor(s) and some software can’t make such a huge impact
Well, the 3.5L V6 this replaces was only rated to 26mpg combined in the Avalon. An AWD GS350 with that engine was 21mpg. 32mpg is a large bump. And it’s quick–0-60 in 5.1 and 101mph in the quarter mile in C&D testing.
The 41mpg 2.5-liter hybrid system is a full two seconds slower.
If these numbers are roughly achievable in the real world, it’s good fuel economy for the amount of power.
I don’t care enough about this car to look it up, but it probably has something to do with wheel size.
Bigger wheels = less range which is why I think it’s dumb that the top trim EV models have the biggest wheels/least range
At the very least you should have the option
Didn’t Ford try the tall sedan thing with the 500? Either way the bodystyle gives off Youabian Puma vibes.
We don’t talk about the Five-Hundred.
Why not? The 500 was a great car, and I still miss my parents black-over-silver ’06(?) FWD. I never got “tall” car vibes from it honestly, it just felt nice and roomy in every dimension. The Crown definitely looks like a sedan with all the Z dimensions + 15%, and I’m not so sure about it.
I’m glad you enjoyed your family’s 500. I’m sure it served you well.
I… always found it to be one of the blandest looking cars ever made. It felt pretty dorky looking, and made a lot of that eras Buicks seem almost desirable in comparison. The name, especially spelled out as “Five Hundred” was very dumb. The only person I knew that owned one had the transmission blow up at 70k.
YMMV.
“The Crown Signia…outsells the sedan by 2-to-1”
There’s some hope for the future of humanity after all.
Interesting review Matt, thanks. The outgoing Avalon was a good car, Toyota finally managed to give it proportions and driving dynamics that didn’t scream “Japanese LeSabre”, even if the grill was overdone and the 8 speed a bit undercooked. I’d happily drive one and I’m nowhere near the typical Avalon buyer age.
I don’t like this Crown, though. At all. It takes away nearly everything good about the final Avalon. $56K still buys a lot of more appealing car elsewhere.
The Signia Estate is the one I can’t get, but would want. Either way, the Signia is by far the better looking car in my opinion. That Signia fastback look is great and the car only struggles, because it is a Lexus without the badge, with the price tag to match.
When my parents were looking for a car (specifically a car and not a crossover or SUV) last year, I suggested a Crown and they test drove it. They said they liked it but thought it could use a bit more power. I’m assuming they didn’t drive the Hybrid Max version with the higher horsepower, or that one wasn’t available at the dealership. They ended up getting a Lexus ES350. They are really at similar price points, which I think hurts the Crown a bit. Their Lexus is really nice, but I was surprised by the lack of any really neat little features on a luxury brand. The CT6 they replaced had so many cool little tricks (like night vision, ability to record the cameras to an SD car, and stuff like that). There’s nothing unusual on the Lexus.
Yes please review the Signia. I’m seeing more of them around now and they look fantastic. That one is also, unfortunately, marketed primarily to older folks (and indeed that’s who’s been driving anytime I’ve seen one).
The sedan is so-so, but the wagon version of this looks brilliant. It’s probably the most desirable vehicle to me that Toyota makes right now.
“What I didn’t adapt to is that I couldn’t find a button to release the hood. I didn’t want to look it up and gave myself the challenge of locating it. It never happened, so I just had to use the remote:”
I have never seen a fob with a button to open the hood.
Trunk, Yes – Hood, No.
I’m glad you’re making efforts to do new car reviews this year
– even weirdos like the Crown.