William Oliver has scored. Finding an ultra-rare Toyota Crown (S60) hardtop coupe is by far the find of 2021 so far, maybe even the decade. The S60 Crown was a rare beast from day one, as it sold poorly and was abandoned in North America after two years (1971-1972).
But this Crown coupe isn’t making its first appearance here at CC. In the comments to Don Andreina’s superb styling analysis of this unusual car in 2014, there was a comment left by Carter, who had just bought this very same car for $500. And he said “It will need a ton of work” (including those rusted rockers). Well, this is the same car, sitting here by some railroad tracks in Ontario, seven years later. Will it ever get that “ton of work”?
Here’s how it looked in 2014. Carter also left a link to several more shots of it here. It was advertised as “Ran when parked”, and presumably Carter never got it running.
And so here it sits, waiting patiently to see what its fate will be. It’s going to take a serious Toyota lover to put what it’s going to take to make this car right again.
Toyota took an uncharacteristic stylistic risk with this Crown, and it backfired. The generations before and after it were all very conservative, but then the period at the end of the sixties was an exuberant one, and even Toyota fell for its spell. But the front end treatment just didn’t work, at least in the eyes of prospective buyers, who looked elsewhere.
The lower/main grille is quite par for the times, but the upper element, necessary to clear the tall inline six, is what didn’t work for most.
Here’s a shot of that engine from Carter’s gallery. The 2.6L SOHC six made 122 (gross) hp.
Here’s a shot of “The Blue Whale’s” logo, from the center of the grille. How’s that for a period piece? I’d love to find one of those in a junkyard. That is pretty amazing.
I found this graphic showing the evolution of the Crown logo, but the 1971 doesn’t quite match up. Hmm.
Rare car here we didnt actually get coupes officially but there always were a few around sedans and wagons were common but rusted beyond roadworthy rather quickly and thats in wet humid salty air not salt on the roads, those 4M engines were good
Saw one once – power glass in the rear – wind ups in the front. Can Only Be Japanese…..
Would be super cool if Toyota corporate bought it and restored for posterity. Sure can’t be many of these left.
Would take in-house resources cause you know there are like ZERO parts available on the market for this, save for whatever interchanges with the FJ40 (if any).
Not much is gonna interchange with the FJ40.Two totally different engine family’s
I like it, especially in this color, they seem to be blue more often from what I recall. At least it’s sitting waiting for a savior and not facing an imminent date with the crusher, so there is (some) hope. I wonder who will spot it next in 2028.
I always did like the unusual front end styling on these Crowns. Is that an MP36PH parked on the rails in the background?.
This would be a GO Transit MP40PH-3C.
Thanks Stumack
No plates. So did the PO just give up on the car? Was it just all talk about restoring the car? So is it abandoned out by the tracks? Definitely won’t have any work done on it out there. Couldn’t have been put back up for sale, cheap, and maybe have another savior take a real interest in the car? So many questions…
I think that consideriong (1) poor parts availability (2) lack of collector interest other than hard core early Toyota folks and (3) resulting lack of return on investment, this car is doomed.
Only thing that you can really do with something like this is clean it up, repair or fabricate the various cosmetic pieces as needed, tune it up, and drive it till it breaks for good.
Hope I’ll catch one of these in better nick someday, though I’m slightly keener on the wagons myself. But any kujira sighting would make for a worthwhile post.
Guy I worked for had an even rarer one when I first met him.a similarly coloured Crown station wagon. It was the only one I remember seeing and funnily enough this was also in Ontario.
He didn’t have it long. Something mechanical went and he could not get parts for it. It was replaced by a boring but much easier to find parts for mercury comet.
There used to be one here in town but I have not seen it in several years. This would be well worth saving.
Someone should mention the unusual bumpers (matched nicely, front to rear) . . .
This is definitely one rare car. I would like to see it saved, but it has so many things going against it which many have listed here. Sad to see it rotting in place like that.
Surely someone somewhere (doesn’t that just roll off the tongue?) must have the love and resources to restore this car.
My grandfather’s cousin had the wagon version in the early 70’s. I only saw it once, when he came out to Pittsburgh for a funeral, but I was fascinated by it. Picked up the Tomy version of the sedan last time I was in Tokyo.
The pseudo-Endura color matching bumper covers are new to me – I assume this was a coupe-only detail.
Sad to see. A 1975 MS75 recently sold here in New Zealand for NZ$35,000.
https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/toyota/listing/3002452123?archive=1&bof=ec2XbNKu
I love the “halo” tail lights on this year of Crown. The inboard centre red lens is the brake lamp, and the outboard centre amber lens is (of course) the signal lamp. But outside of that, both of the lenses glow red around their perimeters for the regular tail light illumination, lit by another bulb set further back in the housing in each. I remember being behind one of these as a kid in my parents’ car and being blown away by this incredibly creative tail light design. That alone makes me love this car—too bad, as others have commented, the parts needed to restore it would be so hard (or let’s be honest, impossible) to find.
I’ve never seen a set of these taillights in operation; that’s really interesting. Looking at your pic of them here, I think 1971-’73 Dodge Dart taillights as they ought to have been done.
Today with LEDs, a setup like you describe (perimeter taillight rings around brake and turn functions) is much easier to do and package than it was back then.
Definitely Daniel, and you’re right this does call to mind the export market Dart you highlighted in one of your articles. This was the only internet photo I could find of the coupe tail lights, unfortunately it doesn’t show the effect very well. The sedan of the same year took a similar approach—and while I like the double-light design of the coupe better, here you can clearly see how Toyota placed three bulbs behind the brake and signal light housings, giving it a similar perimeter glow. Again, very creative and, as you say, difficult to do for the time—I’d love to see how all that works when you get inside the trunk/tail panel of the car.
I tried to attach a photo of the sedan and it didn’t appear… hmmm.
Ah, there it is.
Neato! Reminds me of the Canadian-market VW City Golf (2008) Golf City (2009-2010) tail lamp, which had a round stop/tail light “island” surrounded by an amber turn signal “moat”. The central stop/tail light uses a standard 21/5w bulb; the turn signal uses three 10w bulbs.
(if the Dart you’re thinking of is the one at the top of this article, its turn in my COAL series won’t come for awhile yet, but eventually I’ll describe its lighting system in detail.)
…also reminds me of various Ford setups of the early-mid ’60s.