The failure of the Crown in the US market has been hard for many to grasp. If the Corona and Corolla and all the other Toyotas were so red hot in the US, why was the Crown such a flop? And it’s not just that the S60 had a weird front end, although that undoubtedly pushed it over the edge and Toyota cancelled it in the US after just two years.
The reasons are elucidated in this review. R&T did not pull their punches either; they panned it. It was inferior in just about every respect compared to say a Chevy Nova. And quite so in some.
The problem was that although the Crown felt very “American” it wasn’t designed for the US. It was a big, prestigious sedan in Japan, despite its severe dynamic limitations. That didn’t matter there. Toyota eventually figured it all out, with ever better Cressidas that paved the way for the category-killer Lexus LS. But that was still a way off in the future. In 1972, Toyota would just have to put up with a rare black eye.
The obvious problem is that the Crown was being compared to comparable sized American compact cars, which obviously offered more of just about everything for the money. That was essentially the inverse of the situation with the really smaller cars, where Toyota offered more of everything. And most of all, a well built small car. But in 1972, the quality issues of medium-large American cars wasn’t yet in full bloom, so that alone wasn’t going to tip the scales in favor of the Crown. And it just wasn’t competitive against the European imports, such as the Volvo, which were fetching higher prices too.
There was some speculation that Toyota only sold the Crown here for their executives to drive. But that doesn’t hold up. The previous generation (S50) actually sold in modest but steady numbers. And it was the dealers that wanted the Crown, so they could have something to sell to existing Toyota owners when they were ready for something bigger and nicer. And that really was the Crown’s mission, and not to win new converts. There were a lot of early adopter Toyota owners on the West Coast and in other early Toyota hot beds that fell into that category, and these were its loyal buyers. They just had to move into the new six cylinder Mark II now, instead of the Crown. And that begat the Cressida. And that begat the Lexus. Toyota takes its time, sometimes.
Don’t miss Don Andreina’s Superb Look at the Design of the “Thunderwhale” S60/70 Crown
Although it did not initially have six cylinders, I think there is another intermediate step in your Crown, Mark ll, Cressida, Lexus sequence: Camry.
Huh, I occasionally see pictures of more deluxe domestic market Toyotas and Datsuns from the 70s and wonder why they weren’t imported here. It seems like they would have better challenged the domestic Broughams than some of the tinny, plasticky, cramped, awkwardly styled cars that did come over here. Since Ford had a massive hit with the Granada which offered big car luxury features in a compact package, one would think Japanese manufacturers might follow suit.
Now I know why they didn’t! Also, even by 1970’s Japanese standards, that is an extremely awkwardly styled car. That whole front end has elements from a whole bunch of random and unrelated cars. The top of the hood and the wraparound lights are reminiscent of a lot of sporty coupes of the 80s and 90s, and then we have this vaguely renault/lancia grille, which has nothing to do with the top of the hood, then the huge gap between the fender and the bumper, which is strange looking, and then the weird square windows for the turn signals. Then the rest of the car has an AMC Matador look which didn’t work for the Matador either.
I never found this generation Crown attractive by early 70s standards. As a kid, I felt it looked like a late 60s design. Thus, designed in the mid 60s. Looking much like a compact version of the ’67 Thunderbird four door.
If they were looking for stepup loyalists, 16 mpg wasn’t the way to do it.
Perhaps lack of prestige. “Toyota, don’t they make cheap, loaded for the money, economy cars? “. 0-60 in 14 secs and 14 mpg. Same as a Buick then but with out the badge. Same in the UK. Granada or Rover not Toyota.
I think the Japanese were looking at Chrylser’s fuselage cars of the late 60’s when they designed the Crown.
Yet, something got lost in translation.
We went to Hong Kong with my wife’s family in ’95, and these (plus a lot of earlier models) were the taxicab of choice – the cab drivers’, that is, since we weren’t given one. Talk about your wallowing throwback! Exactly as the R&T article says, it was like we’d taken the Wayback Machine to the cab stand. That the drivers all liked to plow around corners as hard as they could only added to the fun. Mom-in-law usually preferred riding to walking, but after a few of these trips she’d happily choose hoofing it if we weren’t in any hurry, or carrying much of anything.
There’s something I find endearing about the Kujira Crown, in fact I’ve become a bit obsessed with this Toyota, likely due to the general weirdness of its design. I really like the look of the 2 door and Blue Whale wagon best. It’s kind of a shame that big Japanese cars didn’t become popular until the 1990’s.
There is something compelling about the design. The placement of the front indicators is doubly surprising – that someone had the idea, and that other people agreed to it.
I see a strong family resemblance to the Toyota Corona which had been redesigned for 1970. I saw a quite a few of the older Toyota Crown models back in the 1960s and 1970s, but never ever saw any of this generation.
The Crown begat the MK2 Corona which shared the same powertrain the Mk2 Corona begat the Cresida which is actually a rebadge of the MK2 Corona the Crown carried on in production into the 90s, Camry was a step in Lexus production Toyotas went to a lot of trouble on their wide body model even redesigning the engine for the world market, they didnt like the ride and handling really how strange NOT.
Japanese cars were criticised all over the world for terrible road manners and handling its just something they took a very long time to learn, their small cars were bad and it never got better on the larger upscale ones either, very rare cars here now rust and cheap used imports meant this sort of stuff just got scrapped and replaced often with a later imported used Toyota that drank far less fuel was better equiped and far better built
The comparison to a Nova is interesting. No amount of money thrown at a ‘72 Nova was going to get you that level of interior trim / quality. The Crown trunk trim would have been difficult to duplicate in anything short of a Cadillac.
For my money, this most resembles a Holden Brougham with an unfortunate resolution to an imitation ‘69 Chrysler Newport front end scaled too low to handle the real surface area.
My much, much older cousin Curtis had the wagon version of this, but he was always an outlier in the family when it came to car choices. In the 60’s he drove an Austin Healy, and he replaced the Crown with a Land cruiser. Those turn signals are something. I’m alternatively attracted to and repelled by them.
I get what you mean, rear roofline especially, but in the metal, they don’t look similar. The Brougham is mostly Kingswood/Premier, which really weren’t bad looking cars, except the big B had an absurd ass grafted on.
Even with feel-free steering and stonking understeer, the Crown still might handle better than the luxury Holden, though!
These nightmares on grille street sold well enough in Oz to be locally-assembled, even though they were high-line Ford/GM/Chrysler priced. Conservative-type olders, usually, who had the cash and liked the quality.
And who liked some equipment – Oz cars were shockingly basic for years and years, to the extent that a top-of-the-range local still didn’t have the standard stuff a Crown had.
I test-drove a perfect manual one back in about 1990, as I too liked the idea of all that fruit for (by then) not much money. It was smooth, and the gearbox slick, which was nice.
But misleading, as nothing else was.
At the first 10mph corner, I thought the steering had snapped. It spun apparently free. When a message did finally get to the front wheels, they declined to be involved, leaving a bug-eyed slow-moving me to slide right across the roadway on full lock in howling understeer. It felt so unbalanced that one could have assumed the engine was bolted to the front bumper.
After a short drive on the opposite side of the roadway and after unpuckering my pants from the seat, I then found it had no idea about forward travel either. The Japanese Sneeze Factor of that era – modelled on terminal hayfever in many models, but I digress – became a Gap of Terror here, because the slight resistance one would encounter normally either side of The Sneeze was all powered away. One didn’t steer this thing, one tacked.
So I hit the brakes to turn it around, and found the (new) shock absorbers had clearly been made for one of those bucking bronco saddle fun-fair rides, yet fitted to a luxury Toyota. Perhaps something had got lost in translation? Whatever, and after several inclinations to see my breakfast again had subsided, I drove very, very gingerly back to the caryard. “Like it?”, said the over-confident salesman, as if certain that a sale was all-but made. He clearly hadn’t noticed my physiognomy, as I got out, face of ash and green. I whimpered simply, “It’s nice at red traffic lights”, and walked away.
It’s possible he may well still be puzzling over what I meant to this day.
Here’s Hubnut driving a nice example on the Great Ocean Road without understeering into the sea
Mr Nut is a much kinder man than I, and maybe – just maybe – slightly less prone to embellishment.
Though that said, despite wider mag wheels, even HE gets a wail of frontal cornering complaint out of the Crown without breaking (or possibly even reaching) the 60km/h limit on that road.
(As an aside, I do enjoy his videos. They are the essence of dagginess, but he has a good and humorous sense of his own absurdities, and those of the cars he chooses).
As an aside to your aside, I discovered this Youtube channel comparatively recently and it is very watchable. His Peugeot 404, NSU Ro80 and Isuzu 117 videos were excellent, among many others. His selection of cars is always interesting.
Also, many thanks for introducing me to the word dag / dagginess (“is good for you”), a wonderful addition to my vocab. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dag_(slang)
HAHA!
Oh my, well now, I can say as a devoted dag that that Wikipedia entry was clearly written by one of us. Thankyou for the laugh – it’s bloody funny and entirely accurate.
Gotta go, I’ve got a date and have found my shorts, my sandals, my long white socks and my short-sleeved collared shirt, but just can’t find my tie.
I always find this model of Crown, it has modern looking and very good finishing body. Actually because its look was too fashionable for the conservative business class, it didn’t have very good reception when it was introduced.. i am not sure why it failed in the US market, but i think it could be good alternative to some European sedans at that time.
My fascination on this car was when I was in Southern China as a child. Then China tried to open up in early 70s after Nixon visit. There were about thousands of these imported, they were the real modern sedan we saw. Before that we had 1940s Dodge and Ford, Volga, Shanghai SH760, occasionally Hummer and fin tail Mercedes. This Crown was out done all of them except probably fin tail Benze. It was the first wave of Japanese vehicles displaced European and American executive sedans out of South East Asian markets.
So was this Edsel built under license from the Ford Motor Company? Even the gimmick radio would not be out of place in a Edsel. And I never knew these were BOF construction, as I think I may have only seen one in my life, and that’s living all my life on the left coast.
The person who designed this in Japan was watching too much Hawaii Five O !
I learned to drive in a 1971 Toyota Crown Super Saloon, which was of a much higher trim level than the Crown 2600 that was imported into the US. The Super Saloon featured brocade upholstery, power windows, and a host of other amenities standard. My father had two, for his office, and as they were Hong Kong specification cars, they also came standard with dual air conditioning, with outlets behind the rear seats as well as the instrument panel, and a cooling box that worked in unison and which was fitted in the boot under the parcel shelf area. Both cars were comfortable, utterly reliable workhorses, and spent a lot of time idling at the kerbside or in traffic in 35°C heat and intense humidity. They never missed a beat. They did, however rust rather badly, and were eventually replaced with a pair of late HQ series Statesman de Villes, which were superb.