Toyota’s bringing the Crown back to America... as a high-riding SUV-thing

Even though it’s a popular sentiment, we can’t agree that timing is everything. Being in the exact right spot at the exact right time to kick the winning goal means little if you don’t also have the ball. Or play for the right team. Or have limbs.

So why are we mentioning timing? Well, because when it comes to Toyota’s relaunch of the Crown in the US of A, it seems everyone else can’t help but mention it – it’s the first time the nameplate has been in the United States in 50 years, it’s just in time to watch the Avalon bite the dust, it’s a sedan that’s arrived as the four-door steels itself for the bitter end.

But, almost like we were winding up to make a point, we can’t help but think that timing is hardly Toyota’s biggest concern here.

It’s not a matter of powertrains, either – Toyota’s relied on proven and accepted hybrid setups across the board, rather than something that runs on hydrogen, recycled Ikea pencils or internet outrage (a truly renewable energy source). To wit, lower-spec XLE and Limited versions pair electric power with a naturally aspirated 2.5-litre four-cylinder, while a 2.4-litre turbo hybrid is reserved for the top-spec Platinum. And no, the Platinum version doesn’t necessarily mean you have to go with the 'Deadpool’s mask' colour scheme.

Both XLE and Limited drive their front axles with the engine and the rears with an electric motor, resulting in a kind of hybrid all-wheel-drive. But as befits the Platinum’s unexpected tower of power, it runs a full all-wheel-drive system with electric assistance on the rear axle. All up, the Crown Platinum – or should that be Platinum Crown? – will be good for about 340bhp, or about enough to double-check you’re still reading about an ostensibly sensible Toyota four-door.

So, no issues with sheer oomph, either. Nor the fact that Toyota wants to sell a car called the Crown in a country that rather famously decided to become a republic. But, of course, you know what the issue is.

You can get away with jacking up a hatch, wagon, van, pick-up or Porsche 911, but the high-riding four-door sedan or liftback seems almost uniquely ill-proportioned. Case in point: the Maybach ‘Ultimate Luxury’ concept.

But creating a high-riding sedan is actually much more canny than it seems at first blush. Crash safety regulations stipulate minimum bumper heights, which then necessitates a high beltline, which in turn means narrow windows and so on until you arrive at a car that’s basically Ned Kelly’s helmet perched on a set of casters. SUVs have long gotten away with bigger windows and better proportionality purely by raising the ride height. So look again at these pictures. Notice anything? Uh, well, we did. It’s that the windows are still too small, but now it’s for no apparent reason. Hm.

There’s a second reason to raise the ride height, and that’s to fit big wheels. And, as every overlander groans inwardly as Top Gear invokes the most obvious axiom in off-roading, we’ll ride to our own defence with a well-placed hear us out.

Unless you live in very specific parts of the world, streets and roads are hardly getting better. And as you may have already discovered, big wheels and tyres almost invariably take all the stress out of driving on crumbling and clapped-out bitumen. So raising and re-engineering a regular sedan to fit real-world-worthy wheels is hardly the worst idea in the world.
 
So the Crown returns as an oddball, an outlier, a unique avenue on the automotive map that could very well end up at a dead end. And it’s arrived as the family car market melts into a sea of same-same. Timing might not be everything, but we’re inclined to say that the Crown’s arrived at just the right time.