Toyota has become the big tease automaker. After dropping a teaser photo of a silhouetted sedan last week, one that most like is the new Toyota Camry, the automaker dropped another photo today, as can be seen above. Toyota says only that, “Something New is Just Around the Corner” and “With All-Wheel Drive, this hybrid electric mid-size SUV goes beyond what’s expected”.
It’s clearly a liftback, and it’s too far off the ground to be a sedan. Then there’s the C on the right-hand side of the photo. Then there’s HEV tag, Hybrid Electric Vehicle, and the all-wheel drive badging.
Knowing what we know about what’s coming down the Toyota product turnpike, we’d wager a guess that this is a Toyota flagship all-wheel-drive SUV, one that’s an extension of the Toyota Crown lineup, tailor-made for markets like the U.S. In fact, we’re wagering it looks much like the sketch that Toyota released earlier this month of a “Crown Estate” SUV, sketches that included both left- and right-hand drive instrument panels. Certainly, it’s far more handsome than the Crown crossover the company is currently flogging on this side of the pond.
And we wouldn’t be surprised if a new Crown model was coming stateside.
The Crown sedan, which replaced the Avalon here in the states for 2022, has not fared well. For the first half of 2023, sales of the Crown were more than 24% lower than the Avalon during the first half of 2022 according to Automotive News.
Still, this is just conjecture. And given the Japan Mobility Show is about to open up to the media on Weds., Oct. 25th, we will soon find out if our educated guess proves accurate.
