During our week with the Crown, we were constantly asked, “why is it two colors?” The black hood, roof, and trunk are available with Oxygen White, Heavy Metal, Bronze Age (two-tone-only), and the Supersonic Red sprayed on our tester for $975. While we admired Toyota’s boldness on the first drive event, spending a longer time with the Crown made us want a single color. Very few people reacted positively to the color scheme, but we can confidently say it attracted more stares than any Toyota we’ve ever driven, apart from the Supra.
In a single color, we think the Crown is rather attractive, but the decision to make it lifted like a crossover seems baffling. It’s three inches taller than a Camry, but only gains 0.1 inches of headroom. Ditto for the ground clearance, which is only 0.1 inches more compared to the Camry. We could imagine an elderly driver enjoying the higher entry point, but the Crown still handles curbs like any other sedan. This seems like a missed opportunity to build a true lifted sedan with a serious ride height increase. We much prefer the traditional Crown Sedan sold in Japan, but Toyota likely wanted to give the US model something to stand out from the Lexus ES.
