Toyota has revealed the first details of a new sedan concept it’s bringing to the Tokyo Motor Show. And it has us wondering if it couldn’t preview a new Lexus as well.
What you’re looking at here is the Toyota Crown concept, previewing what will, when it reaches showrooms next summer, be the fifteenth generation of a model line stretching all the way back (in the Japanese Domestic Market) to 1955.
The current model has been on sale since 2012, so Toyota’s taking the opportunity to pack the new one with all the latest tricks, including vehicle-to-vehicle communications and advanced safety systems. It’s also boasting having tested the thing at the Nürburgring, basing it on the same Toyota New Global Architecture as the new Camry (among others in different forms).
More intriguing to us, however, is the potential version that could reach US shores: not as the Avalon that essentially takes the Crown’s place as Toyota’s largest sedan in America, but as the replacement for the Lexus GS (and ES) sedans.
Like the GX that’s based on the Land Cruiser Prado, the Lexus GS is closely based on the current Crown. It stands to reason, then, that the next-gen Lexus sedan will share much with the new Crown as well. Based on the dimensions the automaker has released for the pre-production concept, it’s actually a bit bigger than the current Lexus GS in every dimension but height (which remains identical).
Lexus is expected to launch one new model to replace both the smaller ES (which currently shares its segment with the sportier IS) and the larger GS in an effort to streamline its product lineup and avoid cannibalizing its own sales.
With the Lexus division set to unveil an unidentified concept of its own at the same expo, we can’t help but wonder if we won’t see this same concept reskinned for upscale export as well.
Photo Gallery
