Welcome once again to The Carchive, where I frantically look through shelves of old crud looking for inspiration, knock everything onto the floor, scoop everything up, reshelve it and then just randomly pick something to write about.

As luck would have it, I randomly picked something pretty awesome. I bring to you, from the pre-Lexus era, the Japanese vision of Sedan luxury circa 1977.

“It’s difficult to sum up the Crown in one word. Oppulent (sic)? Yes, it’s certainly that. Luxurious, Refined? All those superlatives aptly describe that special feeling that you get from the superb Crown Super Saloon”

The Crown 2600 sat at the very top of the Toyota tree in the ’70s as far as the UK market was concerned. It was their full-size offering, and at 15’7″ in length it was one of the larger cars on our roads. It was something of a statement model, and to be honest, driving one was a bit of a statement too, although of which I’m not entirely sure.

“The styling and grace of the Super Saloon is contemporary and distinguished”

No, it was just big. To be fair, there are a lot of things about the Crown that I really like, but that comes down purely to a longing for nostalgia and a yearning for cars to become that little bit more individual once more. That over-wrought front grille was enough to eclipse even some of the chrome found on Detroit products of the era, and the hubcaps would look every inch at home on a Cadillac. There was little doubt, in English minds, that this was Japan’s interpretation of an American luxury car. Fortunately, the luxury side of things was quite comprehensively addressed.

At a time where few European cars at any price had an air-conditioning system on board, Crown Super Saloon had two! No climate control, of course, just basic on or off fridgification, but a separate unit for the front seats and the rears, complete with an air purification system in the boot, ideal for temperature-sensitive asthma sufferers. And those in the back seats didn’t have the facility to adjust merely the temperature, but the radio station, too. The very analogue three-band setup in the dashboard had a self-seek facility which could be activated from the rear bench, to the infinite displeasure, I would imagine, of the bloke at the helm.

This was not a car for carrying children around in. If the annoyance of back-seat controlling didn’t get to you, the sick-making ride and sensation of kiddie-puke on velour would finish you off in short order.

“It has a level of luxury and sophistication that few cars can match”

Sophistication? Well, your local RadioShack had millions of products under its roof but you’d never describe them as sophisticated, would you? The straight-six, 2563cc “4M” engine, fuelled by carbs and whirring out 116 hp, was smooth and quiet, but not exactly grunty. A ton was about all you could expect to coax out of it, meaning no more performance than a four-cylinder Ford Granada or Vauxhall FE of the time.

It was an eccentric choice for anybody to make, buying a Crown, and not that many people here made that decision. The market was still somewhat suspicious of Toyota’s qualifications to market a luxury car to compete with the high-specification volume-produced cars by Ford and GM that we all knew and loved; and the Germans definitely had different ideas to the Japanese in terms of what constituted a luxury car. It wasn’t until the Lexus badge first arrived here in ’89 that a Japanese brand would finally gain recognition as a genuine luxury marque.

Today there are hardly any of these left on our roads, Crowns of all descriptions, this shape, the one before and the one after it, would succumb to rust in a major way if you didn’t discourage it actively. As a result of this, and also because of their size and weight, a Crown’s demise would often arrive with assistance from a Banger Racer. An early ’90s Banger circuit would invariably consist a field of Granadas and Cortinas, Big Vauxhalls, and often a few token American cars, chosen for their size and worthlessness. There would often, too, be a smattering of Crowns, Laurels and 280Cs. Big, Cheap, Heavy.

Like me, really.

 (Disclaimer: All images are of original manufacturer publicity material, photographed by me. Copyright remains property of Toyota. I’ll try to get a little bit less of the spare bedroom carpet in shot going forward)