Meet the Owner – 1972 Toyota Crown Custom Estate

There are those rare but wonderful times when an advertisement for a classic car stops you in your tracks. A 1972 Toyota Crown Custom Estate in the finest orange available to humanity is just such a vehicle - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/276124117676. 51 years ago, this would have been the vehicle for the local elite – the sort of motorist who also owned two colour television sets.

Toyota unveiled the original S30-series Crown in 1955. 10 years later, the marque was one of the exhibitors at the London Motor Show, with sales of the third-generation Crown S50 commencing in 1968. The fourth generation S60/S70 replaced it in February 1971.

Japanese motorists could choose from various engines, but British motorists were offered only the 2,563cc straight-six engine combined with 'Toyoglide' automatic transmission. In July 1972, Motor found the Estate’s styling reflected “an American or at least a pan-Pacific character which is sufficiently strong in itself to influence a buyer one way or the other”.

And the Crown does reflect Toyota’s hopes that it would appeal to affluent American suburbanites. The USA was an important export market; by 1970, Toyota was the country’s second-largest car importer, rising to first place in 1975. Ironically, the S60/70 did not prove especially popular with US motorists.

Across the Atlantic, Motor also found the Crown’s mechanical refinement “remarkable” as “both the engine and transmission being particularly smooth and quiet”. Toyota GB marketed the Estate as offering “Practical versatile, limousine comfort”, and Motor thought it “a well-mannered, viceless car that can be hustled through corners at a respectable pace without drama”.

Autocar moaned about the “woolly steering” but regarded the Crown Estate as “a worthy addition to the number of cars designed to take up to eight occupants”. Few, if any, potential Crown Estate buyers would have been searching for a sporting station wagon and were probably more concerned with the long list of standard fittings.

And the Crown Estate owner could also boast of an AM/FM radio with an electric aerial and even a foot control for the self-seeking mechanism and “vacuum door locks”. In addition, the luggage bay incorporated a reverse-facing ‘cricket seat’, and the rear passengers had their own radio controls and air vents.

In 1972, a Crown Estate cost £2,146, as opposed to £2,103 for a Volvo 145S, £2,228 for the Citroën DS21 Safari, £2,291 for a Triumph 2.5 PI Mk. 2 Estate, or £2,088 for the latest Ford Granada Estate. Alternatively, Vauxhall sold the FE-Series Victor 2300SL Estate for £1,810, or you could ask Crayford to convert a Wolseley Six ‘Landcrab’ for a total cost of £1,975.

However, none of these rivals had the Toyota’s quasi-American appeal, and it was far cheaper than a large US-style station wagon such as an Australian Ford Fairmont for £2,622.

Toyota GB sold comparatively few Crowns in the UK, concentrating their sales efforts on the smaller Corona, Carina, and Corolla. The 80/90/100-series replaced the S60/70 in 1974, and today, there are just 2600s of any type still on the road in the UK - https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/vehicle/toyota_crown_2600.

Above all, the Crown Estate fascinates as it typifies the States’ influence on post-war Japanese culture. These pan-Pacific design tropes extend to the interior, with its square instruments and the steering column-mounted selector for the automatic transmission. As the brochure claimed with justifiable pride – “This is no utility vehicle”.