(first posted 4/12/2016) For almost every generation in its 61-year existence, the Toyota Crown has had styling that is best described as “generic Japanese luxury car”. One exception was the S60/S70 generation, manufactured from 1971 until 1974.
Whether wagon, sedan (S60) or coupe (S70), this generation of Crown has styling with swagger. This S60 sedan I photographed doesn’t even need its wild orange paint job to stand out. Check out the chrome detailing at the edge of the hood…
…the large, segmented taillights…
…and finally, the chrome C-pillar decoration. This is perhaps the S60’s weakest angle only because these sharp details could easily be pictured on an even larger sedan.
S50 and S80 Crowns
After the 1960s when neat, crisp designs dominated in the Japanese automotive industry, the 1970s was when some players became more confident. Datsun went further than the others in terms of outlandish designs, while Toyota’s designs followed a more gradual stylistic evolution. The S60/S70 Crown was the exception to that rule, looking little like its blocky predecessor and also dissimilar to its blocky successor.
These S60 sedans measured 184.3 inches in length with a 105.9 inch wheelbase and 66.5 inches in width: in total, Toyota’s flagship Crown was a good 5-10 inches shorter in almost every dimension than a contemporary Dodge Dart.
Although in Australia we missed out on the Mustang-esque coupe and dashing wagon (covered by Don Andreina here), the sedan was assembled by AMI from CKD kits. In 1974, Toyota’s Aussie lineup consisted of (in ascending order by price) Corolla, Corona, Celica, Mark II and Crown. The flagship Crown retailed for just over $AUD 4,000, just a couple of hundred dollars shy of the larger Statesman by General Motors-Holden, pricier than the Mazda 929 and Chrysler Regal, but undercutting the Datsun 260C (Cedric) and anything by the Europeans. AMI also assembled some American Motors models from CKD kits, but the cheapest of that range – badged Rambler here – was the Hornet, priced a cool $700 above the Crown.
The Crown retained the previous generation’s 2.0 four and 2.0 and 2.2 sixes in many markets but new for the S60/S70-series was a 2.6 six mated to a four-speed manual or three-speed automatic. Although it was more powerful and more daringly styled than Crowns past, these were still plush, comfort-oriented sedans first and foremost and rode atop a separate chassis. The Crown SE featured additional courtesy lights, reclining seats and a self-seeking radio.
With even the wagon featuring spacey styling – a change from the usual contemporary practice of the Japanese designing mundane yet practical wagons – one must wonder what a ute would have looked like had Toyota continued this Australian-market body style into the S60 generation.
The S60 Crown sedan was a sales flop in North America and the last Crown to be sold there, but in Australia it appears to have sold to expectations. Japanese luxury sedans were still very much a niche product here, but Toyota continued to assemble the Crown in Australia up until 1987. Sadly, those final Aussie-assembled Crowns were plush yet utterly dreary boxes and had not an ounce of the S60 sedan’s flair.
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It was a sales disappointment in Japan too. That’s why the next generation went back to bland and boxy. A pity.
It certainly was a disappointment at home. It was hoped the unique styling would attract a larger number of individual buyers to augment fleet and corporate sales, but it had an opposite effect. As a result, this generation Crown lost the ability to claim best in class sales figures, a title held since 1955.
I inquired about buying one of these.
The car originally had a Toyoglide transmission as the barely visible emblem on the right says.
It had been converted to a 5 speed.
Dashboard details
More…
Under the hood.
Three speed auto same as the MK2 Corona six I had not the turdoglide two speed.
Nice. Those colour coded bumpers mean this is an earlier S60.
Sweet looking car. Although I’ve never actually seen a Toyota Crown in person, I’ve seen plenty of pics of them over the years. For some crazy reason, the Crown never sold well here in the USA, or anywhere in North America. I’m not against small cars for those who want/need one, but there are times when a larger car is needed. And looking at the Crown, it looks like it would’ve competed against the likes of our Chevy Nova, the Ford Maverick, or the Dodge Dart/Plymouth Valiant. All the Crown would’ve needed was a larger engine, either a larger six cylinder engine, or a V8 engine.
It was sold in Puerto Rico (S50 and S60), so technically it was sold in the US : )
We also had the pick-up shown above with the Sta Wagon, but I do not think they lasted in the market.
It was about the size of a Maverick, but four inches narrower. That was very noticeable inside. At least in this generation of Crown the windows were fairly large so they didn’t seem too narrow – until you tried to fit three in the back seat.
They would have had trouble importing them to your country at a competitive price. Here in Australia they came either very nicely equipped or loaded, which sort of justified the premium price – and that was with local assembly. I don’t think you guys had much of a market for premium compacts back around 1970, and you hadn’t been getting Japanese cars for long enough for your market to be ready for a premium compact from Japan. In Australia we’d been getting these ‘big’ Japanese cars since about ’62.
What I don’t understand is why it never sold well here in the USA.
It was pretty expensive in the US plus the conservative buyers who cozied up to previous Crowns were turned off by the styling. This generation of Crown was sold in the US for a year in 1971-1972 before being replaced by a bigger, restyled Corona Mark II which also eventually gained the Crown’s 2.6 liter engine.
While I like the styling of the 1972-76 Corona Mark II, I found the MS60 series Crown more attractive.
How much more expensive was the Crown MS60 next to the Corona Mark II, particularly the one in the pic above?
The S60 never really sold well anywhere. I love this shape more than any other Crown, but for a variety of reasons it was not popular. The US wasn’t really ready for this class of Japanese car and the other markets including Japan found its styling too extreme. These points have been covered quite a bit within CC, particularly during Toyota week. You’re an active commenter within some of those articles…
I know. I liked both the MS50 series Crown and the MS60 series Crown. It’s unforgivable that none of the Crowns sold well here in North America.
To err is human, to forgive divine.
Probably getting too close in size and price to domestics like the Maverick Pete mentions or maybe a Plymouth Valiant. At that point, people were more interested in something like a Corolla or a Corona because they didn’t have much domestic competition. Once you got into this realm, I think people were more likely to say, “Well, hell, Charlie, why dontcha just get a Nova? It’s too hard to find parts for them furrin’ jobs.”
Never realized these were smaller than a Dart/Valiant–they look larger somehow. Fantastic styling though–very 70’s “Japanese weird” but one of the best applications of the theme. I’ve never seen one in person either, unsurprising if they were a sales failure here, but I’d like to someday.
I love how the styling of Japanese cars from the 50s through 70s (80s?) seems to have lurched randomly among Euro-derivative, to American muscle car-derivative, back to homegrown weirdness…this one seems to have some of each.
So do I. I grew up in the 1980s, and so I’ve seen Japanese cars of the 70s through the early 90s as my favourite cars.
I will be one of the dissenters here – I just don’t find this car appealing at all. It is a combination of a 1971 Satellite sedan and a 1971 Matador sedan, only smaller. And with a stranger front end.
It has a very “1970” style to it, which turned out to be a style with a very short shelf life. By 1974 or 75, the only successful cars had either never taken this style on or had moved beyond it. I suspect that a combination of looks and price is what killed it here. In the US, six cylinder compacts were larger and much cheaper, plus they were a known quantity.
I like the style of 1970s cars, particularly the Japanese cars. Whether the Japanese were deliberately trying to mimic the American car designers, I don’t know. But I like how they looked.
I think that for most people who like them it is because of the eccentric/strange styling.
Overall though it is a case of a car that is designed as a premium/executive car can’t really compete against a ‘cheap transport’ compact. The reverse is also true, for example when Chrysler replaced the Humber Super Snipe with the Valiant in the UK in the late 1960’s.
If I lived during the late 60s-early 70s, and wanted a Japanese car which was similar in size to our American cars of the time, there wasn’t much to choose from. While the Corolla and Corona were good cars, I, for one, would’ve preferred a 1972 Crown, or a 1972-76 Corona Mark II.
Nice cars and mostly a step above other local offerings in OZ at the time, Before I returned to NZ I had a 74 MK2 Corona with the same 4M OHC engine the Aussie Crowns came with, our next door neighbour in Geeveston TAS had a 74 Crown in a kinda shit brown with fat tyres and twin exhausts straight thru from the split exhaust manifolds that engine came with, sounded great and went ok, A popular engine swap was Holden V8 or six into crown though with the six you got a drop in horsepower, I’d prefer the 4M.
I’ve grown to appreciate the eccentric looks of this generation Crown as the years have passed. This was the generation where the Toyopet branding was dropped in favor of Toyota in the home market. Japanese marketing material from the time describe these as “spindle-shaped”, but that did not stop people from affectionately nicknaming this generation the “kujira” (Blue Whale).
Such an interesting design! I’ve never really studied up on my Crown generations and must have glossed over this one before without really noticing that unique front end treatment.
Was the S50 version of the Crown all that successful in the ‘states? If not, I would think price alone kept the Crown series from succeeding in the U.S. Folks still associated any Japanese car manufacturer with “cheap and economical” in the 70s, and while I imagine you got your money’s worth with the Crown, it was more car than folks were ready for.
While living in Jacksonville in the 70s (THE largest port for car imports at the time) I did see a wagon and coupe of this Crown series….it would take a few years (nearly 10) before I saw a Crown sedan.
The coupe combines 60s Chrysler roofline with 70s Chrysler side sculpting on a car that is sized like a Valiant.
Probably one of the more interesting Japanese wagons.
The sedans are just kind of ho-hum. And yes, that “C” pillar……chrome detailing is wrong. It looks about 1 or 2 sizes too big.
The predecessor of this generation Crown sold reasonably well, mainly on the West Coast, and probably mostly to Toyota-lovers who were ready to step up to something larger. As is often the case with import car early adopters, many were better educated and more affluent than average, and could afford it. The Crown essentially competed against imports like the Volvo 144/244, Saab, and low-end Mercedes 200/220.
But this generation’s face was just too much even for Toyota lovers. It bombed out on its looks alone, and its prospective buyers found their way to one of the cars listed above, or something similar.
If the looks had been acceptable, the Crown could have had a long-term future in the US.
I agree. I think the killer was the shelf with chrome accents on the hood – the rest of the car could be described as bold, but that detail just made the whole car look weird. Even early adopters have their limits, and they probably didn’t want to deal with the “what the hells” from their friends. Better to just buy a Saab – weird, but not TOO weird.
Great find. Saw my first coupe in the flesh last weekend at a show day.
I once described the S60 hardtop as looking “rather like the illegitimate offspring of a 1971 Plymouth Satellite and a coastal gun emplacement.”
Thunderwhale!
Recently on the Bay of E there was a rather nice 1987 JDM Crown for sale here in the US. Note the full model name. Yes, that means this is a Crown Royal Saloon. Please proceed with the whiskey jokes (but don’t drink and drive).
Nice looking car. Were you able to get more pics of the car? Or was this it?
There’s one of these in front of a local Toyota dealer. Looks to have been a Japanese taxi. I’m on my tablet now, so I don’t have a picture of it.
Lovely find William – and in the perfect colour! The S60 is so fabulously stylish that I always think it should have been a Nissan. The earlier version with the coloured bumpers is divine. Still see the odd sedan around here – it’s been a couple years since I last saw a coupe, and haven’t seen a wagon in the flesh in about 20 years (although there are still 6 wagons left in NZ).
Thanks for reminding me how awful the S60 looked.
I’m almost certain I saw one of these driving by more than a year ago. Somebody must love their Crown to have it roadworthy after so many decades. I do like the S50 with its nice crisp lines.
Had one of these during a military tour in the early ’80s – black (as most were), 2.0L M series inline 6 and 4 spd. Even had the Brougham interior. Typical Toyota – unbreakable – only complaint was that it did wallow a bit in the turns. Subsequently have had an S80 and a S140 – all great cars.
In that colour, I like it. In the early 1970s, someone-at-school’s Dad’s had one and we laughed at it……
Nice looking car. I’ve heard of the Toyota Crown MS60 series. For some reason, the Crown never sold well in the USA. I don’t know why. Could it have had something to do with marketing?
The Lexus LS series a decade and a half later is the “spiritual” successor to the Toyota Crown.
One of my uncles, who lived in Bryn Mawr, had one of these – a white station wagon. Only one I ever saw in the flesh, when he came out to Pittsburgh for a funeral. 10 year-old me was fascinated.