- There's a certain segment of the population
that just steadfastly refuses to buy a crossover or an SUV.
They just don't want that big, high-riding truck like feel,
They would still much rather have a sedan.
But the number of sedans in the market is shrinking.
The Chrysler 300C and Dodge Charger
aren't gonna be around much longer.
The Chevrolet Impala is gone.
Toyota no longer sells the Avalon either,
but Toyota has not completely abandoned the segment,
they've replaced the Avalon with this,
this is the new 2023 Toyota Crown.
And we're trying to figure out exactly what this is.
It's a sedan, but it sits up a lot higher.
It's four inches taller than the Avalon was.
So it's kind of a sedan
but still has the driving proportions
and feel of a tall-riding SUV.
Are people gonna want that?
Yeah, we're not quite sure.
Toyota seems to think so.
So let's have a look up close
at what Toyota has created with the new '23 Crown.
Let's talk about the styling of the new Crown,
it is very different from the old Avalon.
You have the Toyota family front end
but I think this is probably the best interpretation yet
of Toyota's new styling theme.
It certainly looks a lot better
than the big, fish-mouth Camry,
but as you move down the side of the vehicle,
you realize that they've disguised how tall it is
through a couple of different ways.
They've raised the height on it,
usually through the wheels, you've got 19 and 20 inch wheels
on this vehicle, which does raise the thing up a little bit,
but you've also got these black surrounds
on the wheel wells as well.
That helps to disguise its height a little bit as well.
The car is about a little more than four inches taller
than an old Avalon but it is narrower and it's shorter.
And it rides on a one inch shorter wheel base as well,
so it's not quite as big as the old Avalon.
But the real defining aspect is this.
It might look like a crossover coupe
but it doesn't have a hatchback, it has a standard trunk.
Now, it's a pretty big trunk
because you have all this tall sheet metal back here,
but it is more conventional.
It doesn't have the great, big cargo area
that a crossover might have.
So is it a sedan? Is it a crossover?
It sits so high, it's not really a low slung sedan.
I'm not quite sure what it is.
But I do know it does look pretty cool,
certainly looks better than the Avalon.
Further blurring the lines between whether or not
this is a crossover or a sedan, are the power trains.
You have a choice of two but they're both hybrid.
Bases of 2.5 liter four cylinder
mounted up to an electric drivetrain.
The base models are hybrid only but all-wheel drive.
We don't have any power numbers for that model just yet,
but if you opt for the hybrid max system
that uses a turbocharged version of the 2.4 liter engine
and that does produce 340 horsepower.
Now, obviously if you get the turbocharged version,
you're gonna get a little bit less fuel economy
than you would with just the normal hybrid
but you do have options.
However, both of these power trains
are also all-wheel drive.
So like a crossover or an SUV,
you've got that all-wheel drive functionality
but you still have the fuel efficiency of a hybrid.
So again, kind of blurring the lines.
The interior of the new Crown
really doesn't feel quite as large as the old Avalon,
especially in the headroom department,
which is strange given the fact that
this is supposed to be taller than the Avalon
but my head is hard up against this headliner
despite the fact that I have the seat basically down
as far as it can go, that's a bit strange.
But really, everything else in here is pretty conventional.
The materials really do feel good.
You have two 12.3 inch screens in front of you,
that one obviously is a touchscreen when the power is on
and it runs Toyota's latest multimedia system
which is a far cry better
than the ones that Toyota used to have out there.
There are also hard buttons in here.
So not everything is done through the touchscreen,
all the climate control, the radio controls as well,
all are actual buttons and switches.
So that should still please some of the people
who aren't quite ready yet to make the jump
to everything being a touch screen.
There are a few different grades of Crown
that you can get as well.
This is the top loaded Hybrid Max Platinum
and the interior's a little darkened dower in here
but you can actually specify it
with a bunch of other different colors
to lighten things up considerably.
There is a glass roof in this model as well.
And it is a little unusual
in that it has this basic spar
that goes between the B pillars as well
presumably for rollover crush strength,
but it does break up the overhead panoramic glass panel
in a kind of unusual way.
There is a really reasonable size back seat here.
They did keep that aspect from the Avalon quite well.
You've got plenty of room for two or even three people.
You do have a floor hump in the middle here.
So that third person in the middle
might not be as comfortable
but the best feature might be back here where you've got
a significantly larger trunk
than most vehicles in this category.
This is one aspect
that they kept from the Avalon quite well.
There's a ton of room back here for luggage and cargo
and it gets even better when you pull one of these levers
and drop the seats into the cabin you have even more room.
Final pricing, fuel economy and power numbers
aren't yet available for the Crown.
Those will be coming closer to its on sale date
later this fall.
And we'll be getting our first drive
of the new 2023 Crown in October.
Now this is a really interesting vehicle
from a company that quite honestly
doesn't always make very interesting vehicles.
So we're really curious to see if this unusual combination
of SUV capability, but sedan functionality
is gonna appeal to people who really did like the old Avalon
or if they're gonna be able to draw
in a new batch of buyers into the Toyota family.
If you'd like to learn more about the new 2023 Toyota Crown
or any of Toyota's lineup,
you can look everything up on cars.com.