According to sources, the legendary Toyota Crown nameplate will be mounted on an SUV

TOKYO – Toyota Motor Corp plan to launch a utility sports car Its Crown sedan version is for Japan, China and North America, three people said, revamping a vehicle has been a hit in the Japanese market for nearly seven decades.

The SUV – will appear in mixture, dip into the mixture and all-electric models – marking an attempt to bring the 67-year-old Crown more in line with market trends as consumers move away from sedans.

Hybrid vehicle sales are expected from the summer of 2023 and will include exports to China and North America, while the plug-in hybrid is for the domestic market, they said.

The two said that the electric vehicle will be available in early 2024, and the automaker has yet to finalize its export plan.

As part of the overhaul, Toyota There will also be a fully refurbished sedan version of the Crown from this summer, the people said.

Both the SUV and the sedan will be manufactured at the plant in Toyota City, Japan.

A Toyota spokesman declined to comment.

Widely sold in the domestic market throughout its history, the Crown was the first passenger car developed and built entirely in Japan, marking a pivotal moment in our rise to become a the country’s global car manufacturing giant.

This was also the first car Toyota exported to the United States, in 1958. Two years later, Toyota was forced to suspend exports because the Crown engine was not capable of reaching the necessary speeds on American highways.

Toyota sold more than 200,000 sedans in 1990 when Japan’s economy boomed, but by last year, annual sales in the country had fallen to 21,000.

Crown’s improvement also comes as Toyota – like other Japanese automakers – seems to have removed the perception that it has been slow in battery adoption. tram.

Last year, the automaker said it would invest about $70 billion to electrify cars by 2030.