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Toyota Sets July 15 Debut Date for All-New Crown

Expect a unique mashup of SUV and sedan body styles.

Andrew Krok Reviews Editor / Cars
Cars are Andrew's jam, as is strawberry. After spending years as a regular ol' car fanatic, he started working his way through the echelons of the automotive industry, starting out as social-media director of a small European-focused garage outside of Chicago. From there, he moved to the editorial side, penning several written features in Total 911 Magazine before becoming a full-time auto writer, first for a local Chicago outlet and then for CNET Cars.
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Andrew Krok
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Toyota Crown Announcement Image
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Toyota Crown Announcement Image

You get a Crown, and you get a Crown! Everybody gets a Crown!

 Toyota

The Toyota Crown is an executive sedan that the automaker has been selling in various forms since 1955. It used to be sold in the US but left this market after 1973, and luxury offshoot Lexus generally picked up where that car left off in the decades that followed. But a new Crown is reportedly coming back to the US, and we'll get our first look at it this month.

Toyota on Wednesday announced that it will debut the all-new Crown on July 15 in a livestreamed event. Prior to its unveiling, Toyota also launched a new microsite for the Crown, which will likely tease the car's new styling before the actual event next week.

For now, the site offers a short animation that appears to point to the Crown's unique position as something that isn't quite an SUV but isn't quite a sedan. Patent images that allege to preview the Crown also reinforce this chimeric body. It's not necessarily a groundbreaking mashup, as the Honda Accord Crosstour already attempted to blend SUV and sedan dynamics (albeit poorly), but it's definitely an interesting way to keep the sedan vibe alive as buyers keep flocking to high-riding SUVs.

Patent Images of the Upcoming Toyota Crown SUV
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Patent Images of the Upcoming Toyota Crown SUV

These patent images allegedly show the new Crown, which is a chimera that includes both sedan and SUV design elements.

 Japan Patent Office

Reuters reported back in April that Toyota intended to launch an SUV variant of the Crown for sale in Japan, China and North America. The report claims the Crown will be offered in hybrid, plug-in hybrid and full-electric variants; of these, Reuters claims the hybrid is destined for the US, with the PHEV version staying in Japan. As for the EV's target markets, the report says Toyota is still working on that.

Toyota has yet to come out and confirm that the Crown is headed to the US, but there is certainly some good proof for that. Toyota applied for a trademark on Crown in May 2021, and an allegedly leaked dealer document shows a timeline that places the Crown's on-sale date as October 2022. Sources familiar with Toyota's future product plans told CNET that a select group of media was recently shown a prototype of the upcoming Crown, as well.