Even as I photographed this car, I was dreading having to write it up. I had seen these before many times and read up a few brief things on them, but nothing seemed to be stirring any excitement in me. A little bile maybe, but nowhere near enough for a post’s worth of diatribe. “Take the pics anyway, you never know.” There are many JDM cars that appear bland, but end up having some sort of an edge. Luckily, after a bit of research, this one did too.
I used to watch Goodness Gracious Me when I lived in London, a comedy show made by Brits of South Asian origin. There was one famous sketch that always stuck with me: a reverse take on British yobs going out for a curry, where Indian yobs “go out for an English” on a Friday night in Bombay. One of them tells the waiter: “I want the blandest thing on the menu!” The Toyota Motor Corporation’s answer to that demand would be the Progrès.
They previewed it at the 1997 Tokyo Motor Show, to deafening yawns. It was unleashed on the Japanese market in May 1998 as the Progrès (pronounced “Pro-GRAY” – because it’s so French), but was almost launched as the Neuron (pronounced “You-CanNOT-Be-SEE-rious”) until someone realized “I’ll fire up the Neuron” sounded really neuronally-challenged.
2001-07 Series 2 showing off its new rear – not much Progrès…
The Progrès came in two shades of gray: NC 250 for the 2.5 litre straight-6 or NC 300 for the 3-litre. The “NC” bit stood for “Neo Category,” as even back in 1998 the car did not really fit into Toyota’s plethoric JDM range. Underneath its milquetoast exterior, the Progrès was a watery cocktail of a Mark II platform with a Crown S150 drivetrain mixed in – RWD of course, though an AWD version did appear in 1999. In early 2001, the Progrès got a slight facelift (new grille, new alloys, new back-up lights and little else) and thereafter was left in a state of blissful inertia until it was killed off in 2007.
What was the point of this car? That is a question that many at Toyota probably wondered, but alas not loudly enough to spark a reflection on the opportunity to halt proceedings before the launch occurred. The idea, as far as I can make out, was to compete with mid-sized Audis, BMWs, Jaguars and Mercedes-Benzes on the JDM by offering a medium-sized car chock full of technological goodies and upscale trim. Think 1975 Cadillac Seville, but done by Mitsuyuki Noguchi, the guy who was in charge of the V12 Century.
Problem number one: the Progrès looked about as appealing as a root canal. The fugly face hesitating between square and round headlamps was supposed to echo the new Century, which was fortunately spared this catastrophe. The rear of the car is less immediately dreadful, but has a passing similarity with the Crown Comfort taxi – not the most glorious of references for a car with lofty hopes, a high price and a French name.
Problem number two: Toyota already had a bunch of executive RWD saloons to combat Mercedes and BMW’s inroads into the holy ground of the JDM. (And let’s not pretend the threat wasn’t there – the big German saloons have a following in Japan, like everywhere else.) But if you’re fighting against the sporty, hairy-chested BMW and the glamorous, stand-up hood ornament Benz, why show up with a hyper-conservative shape and a face like a half-finished clay model?
Click to enlarge — and to know what’s what
Here are some (i.e. just the RWD ones) of the Toyota executive saloons that existed alongside the Progrès, circa 2002-03. We have, in no particular order: the Mark II (soon to be replaced by the Mark X), the Verossa, the Crown, the Brevis (a reskinned Progrès launched in 2001), the Aristo and the Altezza. Fragment much, Toyota? Let’s not gloss over the fact that the Progrès was boxing in the “high-end luxury” category. That all comes at a price. Before tax, the 2003 Crown Royal Saloon cost between ¥2.95m and ¥4.42m, while the Progrès cost ¥3.22m to ¥4.2m. And the Crown, by that point, was quite a bit bigger than the Progrès. Toyota soon started dropping some excess baggage (bye-bye Mark II, vamoose Verossa and adios Aristo), but this did not help the Progrès one jot. Sales were downright stagnant.
A better shot of the interior (series 2), with the leather upholstery that nobody ordered
Therefore, it was soon time for Toyota’s Seville to head for the chopping block, along with its Brevis sister model. The axe fell in 2007, as the model was in its tenth year. Few noticed, even fewer cared. The whole “Neo Category” thing, which entailed that no Toyota badge was to be found on the car, was a marketing and branding dead end. People went back to buying Mark Xs and Crowns, or were lured towards the BMW dealership. Since 2007, a great many of the Progrès have left their homeland, as JDM cars tend to do, for a second life in various parts of the world. It seems a number have ended up in East Africa, where they had a brief moment of popularity in the early part of the 2010s, before tales of huge running costs and repair bills started to tarnish its image.
Series 2 again – couldn’t get a profile shot IRL, but would hate to have deprived you of the pleasure
Toyota’s global image was not necessarily affected by all this. It mostly took place in Japan, where most of Toyota’s screw-ups have tended to happen. From the outside, Toyota looks like a sleek and efficient corporate giant that makes great cars and pickups for the entire world. From the Japanese perspective, it’s a confusing, contradictory, bureaucratic and arch-conservative leviathan that has shot itself in the foot on a number of occasions. It’s a similar dichotomy with pre-bailout GM – how it was viewed from the outside, as opposed to how it was experienced in North America.
The Progrès was not entirely wasted, as it did produce the Origin, one of the few retro/pike cars that doesn’t make one’s eyes bleed. I’m sure all things being equal, the Progrès was a fine car for its time. But things never are equal, especially in such a competitive and crowded segment. To stand out in this crowd required a cool gimmick, like a three-pointed star or a leaping feline. The pathetic round in-board headlamps just didn’t cut it, and the silly French name no local could ever pronounce didn’t fool anyone. Toyota went a saloon too far with this one. Maybe it should be pronounced “re-GRAY.”
Tedious, true but they are nicely finished, theres one in my street in the same road grime grey as the posted car, Ive never really taken much notice of them the vast range of JDM models is quite bewildering and I see them daily they are just traffic here, These did have an upmarket look about them though, lots of used BMWs and Benz have come here exJDM, they are good cars to avoid, Repair shops make their bread and butter out of used import JDM cars, those are the ones that break down often a couple of owners after they land when all the value has evaporated, but Japanese reliability is good compared to what exactly.
No, pro-gray is fine, when transliterated as “in favor of gray”. If ever a conveyance could be the representation of a passion for nothing much, it would be this vehicular forget-me-please.
And you have toiled valiantly to make a piece of interest about that which is inherently not, and, I should add if it were needed, that toil met success.
Though, to be entirely honest – as I’m sure you’d have no desire for any reader to be, I mean, who would? – the best part is that second-last para. It sounds awfully like the basis for another learned post from you, explaining how the great T is, in its home, not necessarily considered to be the infallible inscrutable oracle that the rest-of-us-worldies consider it to be. Do tell.
As an aside, Goodness Gracious Me was a bit at the thinner end of the British genius for comedy, but it sure had its moments, the one you mention being one I remember too. It’s a lovely mirror of the Rowan Atkinson sketch where he is the Indian waiter.
Oh, and Bland On The Run: I reckon that title has wings….
This looks like what you might have gotten if you took a Lexus GS and put it in a trash compactor sort of thing so that the basic styling cues remained but in a smaller package.
Cars like this are why I try to avoid a silver car or truck…silver, and sometimes light gold, look so blah.
It looks like a Crown Comfort that is trying too hard.
Methinks the idea was to copy the Mercedes W202
kind of looks like the lexus ls430’s dumpy cousin. with a straight six, rwd and a nice interior, how bad could it be?
It’s just as hard to write a comment as it is to write the post itself sometimes. The effort should be lauded, but not sure exactly how. Perhaps just that it was more interesting than the subject vehicle itself and that the whole thing was in fact read rather than giving up and just scrolling about halfway down…
Still, on paper this car seems good and desirable – midsize, luxurious, straight-six, etc., but yes, bland is the word of the day. Doesn’t make it a bad car at all (bland sells) but when bland meets expensive it’s a different story.
I see Honda in the rear three-quarter view. I also saw Rover 200 then realized half a second later that’s again Honda that I’m seeing. 🙂 In any case, while not really a fan of the Origin either, at least it shows that there was the capability of making something very different from the base ingredients.
I’m surprised by the hate here, even if it’s muted. I like this car, whereas I find the Origin quite ugly even in the context of retro. By the way, the joke about Indians ordering bland food in the UK reminded me of a self-deprecating Canadian joke my sister told me after moving to Canada in the seventies: that every Canadian kitchen had a countertop appliance called a blander, to remove flavor from food. But this car isn’t that bad – it’s tasteful, if not exactly tasty.
I kinda like it in that it looks like a mini-Lexus to me, and in contrast to today’s Angry Transformers with Gangbanger Teardrops look, it looks dignified and classy. A 2.5 litre straight 6 with fuel injection and RWD. Quiet and competent road manners sounds like just the thing for a one day run from Ft. Smith to Denver to my 55 yr old self
The equivalent today would be this. I know which I’d rather have
Great post – I remember when these were first introduced, from what I read at that time, Toyota was trying to make a JDM BMW 3 Series, but more skewed toward the luxury side vs performance. As you mention, they didn’t quite achieve that goal.
You can’t get much duller…
Best title I’ve seen in quite a while!
It seems to the very casual observer like me that the number of models Japanese companies offer in the JDM is mindbogglingly prolific.
To me this has scaled-down echoes of the 3rd generation Lexus LS – the one that aped the W140 Mercedes. Neither of those cars deserved to be “copied”.
Driven one of these, and it is gooood. Better than the Brevis, with one of the best interiors I’ve ever come across (and way nicer than the IS). Boxy as hell, but I dig that.
I have a 60k 2.5 version of the Progres pre the D4 injection and it stacks up well against all the other Soarers, Sc430’s I’ve owned. I wanted a Crown or Aristo but both are considerably bigger and parking in hospital car parks of limited space was a priority. Yes it is slab-sided, but has the best visibility when parking of any car I’ve owned in the past 20 years.
Big on the inside, small on the outside best describes the Progres and smooooth ride, the wheel base is the same as the Crown and 3/4″ shorter than the Aristo.
It was twice the price of a Corolla in the day and now represents great value for money and if I had a long journey here in NZ I would prefer it to my 2009 XK Jag.
When driving all you can see is the first 2 inches of the bonnet…hood to others.. at 70 bland is just fine when needing comfort.