JDM fanatics take word: there’s one other automobile which you can’t have with out submitting importation paperwork. The Toyota Crown Landscape, Toyota’s newest addition to its Crown nameplate, virtually appears designed for American JDM fanatics. To add to its collectors’ attraction, Toyota is just producing the Crown Landscape till December 2024.

The Crown Landscape is probably probably the most all-American car ever to be saved out of the American market. Despite being a sedan, it’s a stunningly excellent execution of the all-American crossover SUV. Indeed, the Crown Landscape is a much better SUV than the bZ4X that Toyota is exporting to the United States. It is the proper mix of the modern-day crossover SUV’s two conflicting identities: the off-road journey car, and the transportation module for one’s youngsters and Little League gear. It’s virtually like Toyota by chance despatched the flawed car to the US and saved the flawed one at dwelling.

In order to provide the most modern and correct data doable, the info used to compile this text was sourced from Toyota and different authoritative sources, together with CarBuzz and Hagerty.

The Crown Landscape Is A Luxury Sedan With SUV Suspension

• The Landscape is an off-road variant of the Toyota Crown luxurious sedan.
• It has a high-output powertrain in comparison with different Crown variants.
• The Crown Landscape is a sedan-styled and clad to resemble an SUV.

The Landscape is Toyota’s long-running Crown luxury sedan in SUV guise. Toyota has lifted it by 25mm (a scant inch), and added beefy cladding, greater wheels, an optionally available roof rack, and a towing hitch that comes full with a crown brand cowl. To individuals exterior of Japan, the transfer from stately sedan to off-roading is a wild leap for a single nameplate. In the United States, sedans and off-roaders are two market classes that by no means intermingle. Sedans might get high-performance packages, however such enhancements are all the time extra inclined in direction of racing and different well-paved adventures than the rugged wilderness.

The Crown Landscape Has A High-Horsepower Powertrain

As with each different variant of the Crown, the Landscape is a hybrid. Its Hybrid Max powertrain’s 2.4-liter inline-four engine and electrical motor put out a mixed 340 horsepower. And in fact, because the Crown Landscape is comparatively small in comparison with most luxurious barges, it may use extra of these 340 horses for pace reasonably than utilizing them for getting its personal weight out of a lifeless cease.

Standard Toyota Crown Specs

(Data sourced from Toyota)

Of course, the hybrid powertrain might trigger a sure subset of JDM fanatics to lose curiosity within the lengthy bureaucratic course of of auto importation. Like all hybrids, the Crown Landscape has no possibility for a handbook transmission. However, there’s a tiny glimmer of hope for individuals who imagine that no automobile is full and not using a gearstick. If Toyota ever makes an all-electric Crown, there’s a sliver of an opportunity that it could possibly be fitted with Toyota’s still-conceptual simulated manual transmission.

Toyota Used Plastic Cladding To Make The Crown Landscape Resemble An SUV

The Crown Landscape has a powertrain that’s much more highly effective than it must be. However, virtually each luxurious car comes with a number of hundred superfluous horses below the hood, so that’s hardly a revelatory assertion. The Crown Landscape’s actual standout level is that it’s a sedan driving on an SUV’s suspension. Although Toyota promotes this as a sedan(ish) car suited to adventures within the untamed wilderness, this additionally makes the Crown Landscape suited to individuals whose each day driving takes them over streets which are paved with price range cuts as a substitute of asphalt.

The Crown Landscape’s Interior Is Simple And Elegant

• Toyota gave the Crown Landscape an opulent but understated inside.
• The Crown Landscape’s inside is black with silver trim.
• The again seat folds down for these occasions when the trunk isn’t large enough.
• The driver’s controls are easy as a substitute of gratuitously complicated.

The Crown Landscape’s inside is probably the place its JDM-only standing is the obvious. The inside doesn’t look low cost, however it’s (an costly sort of) modest. Rather than prominently spangling the automobile with as many conspicuously costly options as doable, Toyota has as a substitute gone with an understated look. The Crown Landscape is the kind of luxurious automobile for individuals who know they will afford it, not those that desperately must flaunt their monetary standing at everybody they drive previous.

The Interior Is Understated Yet Upperclass

The inside is executed in black, with small accent traces of matte silver trim deployed as wanted. Of course, the complete car is upholstered in leather-based. In a subtle retro touch, Toyota has positioned the car’s title on the glovebox. Toyota claims each in its promotional writing and in its images that the Crown Landscape is supposed for outside adventures. Accordingly, the plush seating seems simple to wash out after having a muddy good time.

The trunk, whereas maybe a bit troublesome to entry (the rear hatch is considerably small), offers ample space for storing. The again seat folds down to offer extra cargo room. Drivers can both fold down one seat or the complete rear bench.

The Controls Are Simple And Practical

The electronics and controls are tastefully sparse. Like the remainder of the inside, Toyota is avoiding ostentation. Instead of spangling the dashboard with as many buttons as doable, the instrumentation has a number of well-placed controls. Impressively, Toyota has managed to make the middle touchscreen look integral to the car as a substitute of like a last-minute dashboard add-on.

The Crown Landscape encompasses a display as a substitute of mechanical gauges for its instrumentation. But reasonably than crowding the display with difficult graphics to continuously remind the driving force that the automobile has the newest in know-how (as some European competitors have done), the Crown Landscape retains its show to fundamental gauges and readouts.

The Crown Landscape’s Exterior: A Short Overview

• The Crown Landscape is actually a lifted sedan.
• Bulky plastic cladding on the fenders provides the Crown a considerably SUV-like look.
• Toyota has given the Crown Landscape a model-exclusive paint scheme.

The Crown Landscape’s odd form could also be the very first thing one notices. From a distance, the car both seems like a lifted sedan, a considerably heavyset fastback (the trunk lid is just a tiny stub beneath the rear window), or a slightly-slimmed SUV. Aside from its comparatively small measurement (by sport-utility requirements), the Crown Landscape’s exterior is the epitome of the modern-day SUV.

While some automakers like Stellantis have tried to return the SUV to its boxy roots with vehicles like the Jeep Wagoneer, the SUV has step by step reworked right into a clunkier, much less maneuverable minivan. This has given rise to the crossover SUV, which is actually an SUV for individuals who desire a car the scale of pre-2000s SUVs. The Crown Landscape could also be the perfect C-SUV but.

The Crown Landscape Is Beefed Up From The Fenders To The Roof Rack

Toyota affords a sturdy-looking roof rack that appears meant for schlepping kayaks and different costly outside gear. For those that want to retailer their gear contained in the automobile reasonably than on prime of it, entry is surprisingly restricted. Upon first look, one would possibly assume that the complete again of the automobile lifts open. Instead, one can solely a tiny nub of the car’s rear finish. Toyota gamely tries to faux this restricted entry house received’t impede anybody from placing issues into the trunk, exhibiting how a whole (conveniently flat) surfboard slides into the automobile with ease.

Toyota appears to be notably happy with the Crown Landscape’s matte-plastic fenders. They have seen rivets (for that extra-rugged look) and shiny crimson mud flaps (with crown logos on them) to attract the attention towards the wheels. Indeed, the ornamental wheel-arch cladding is so vast that the automobile doorways minimize into it.

Clearly, the rugged assertion fenders had been so aesthetically essential that Toyota’s design division refused to compromise on them— not even for indispensable issues akin to automobile doorways. Perhaps Toyota needs to attract consideration to the two-tone rims. Or Toyota might need viewers to notice that unlike some other SUVs, the Crown Landscape has substantial tires as a substitute of skinny black rubber bands stretched over rims that hardly match contained in the fenders.

The Crown Landscape Has A Model-Exclusive Two-Tone Paint Scheme

In holding with the “rugged, yet upscale” aesthetic, Toyota has chosen a two-tone paint job of military-ish inexperienced (the official title is “urban khaki”) and black. This is the one shade Toyota affords. The complete car is hand-painted, which Toyota states will result in variations between autos. Toyota’s genteel warning that no Crown Landscape will look precisely like the opposite is much like the disclaimers given about unavoidable variations between particular person hand-sewn high fashion clothes.

The Crown Landscape Is Toyota’s Lifted, Rugged Luxury Sedan

It’s exhausting to imagine that Toyota, maybe probably the most conservative of mainstream automobile producers, has put out a lifted all-terrain luxurious sedan. While Toyota is on no account the inventor of sedans with further experience peak and a beefed-up body, such autos are normally the work of customized physique retailers. While the Crown Landscape isn’t the primary of its sort, it’s an automotive rarity. Perhaps the closest analog to it’s the AMC Eagle, which has amassed a cult following lately.

The Crown Landscape Promises More Fun Than The Export-Model bZ4X

Despite being a sedan (or no less than, being principally a sedan), the Crown Landscape is by all appearances a extra entertaining SUV than Toyota’s exported electrical SUV, the bZ4X. Toyota’s all-electric SUV seems like a wonderfully ample transporter of 1’s progeny and pets. However, the Crown Landscape seems like one would no less than have a little bit of enjoyable after dropping the children off.

The Crown Landscape May Not Be The Typical JDM Vehicle, But It Is Certainly Unique

The Crown Landscape will not be the kind of car that many JDM fanatics are likely to fall for. However, like all the fun JDM vehicles worth importing, it’s not fairly like something one can get exterior of Japan. Nobody is making rugged all-terrain sedans, with or with out gratuitous plastic fender cladding. The Crown is an fascinating selection for Toyota to show right into a rugged off-roader. It all the time appeared like a car for enterprise executives to drive by way of better-paved neighborhoods. Whether this restricted version sells out or not, it is going to be exhausting to overlook.