Toyota to offer Century SUV in bid to win more wealthy customers

An extravagance!

A ‘chauffeur-driven’ vehicle?

The vast majority of Japanese will never have the means to buy such a vehicle but there will be plenty to drive around their wealthy employers

Is that a hearse?

It probably costs as much as Rolls Royce so may as well just get a roller. I mean rich people don't need to worry about reliability so much.

@Chibakun

It probably costs as much as Rolls Royce so may as well just get a roller.

Rolls-Royce will release EVs only from now on to comply with the UK's total ICE ban by 2030.

Japan doesn't have the EV charging infrastructure to support fast-charging of EVs with 100 kwh battery packs.

So Japanese auto market will be a Jalapagos auto market, holding onto ICE hybrids while the rest of developed worlds, including EU, US, China, and Korea have transitioned to EVs and Japanese ICE vehicles are either outright banned or heavily penalized(The US strategy to kill the ICE vehicles is to make it more costly to meet new emissions standard than to go electric).

@Chibakun: I'd bet this Toyota lasts 10 times longer than anything produced by any other maker.

Toyota to offer Century SUV in bid to win more wealthy customers

Yeah, just ignore their 2007 promise to equip all cars with front and curtain airbags. Not THAT great a company eh?

Ghastly looking thing. Zero original thought too.

It looks very nice, whatever.

That front façade looks like it was copied directly from a 2021 Escalade. For a 170K, a bit more effort in styling would have been appropriate.

as part of efforts to expand its line-up of premium cars to cater to the demand from wealthy customers.

Aside from

royal families, top politicians and corporate executives.

50 people maybe? Even then, this car looks like it belongs in Showa

Century is a great car. People posting here have probably never ridden in one. It is ultra luxurious. However, this SUV version Century looks like a station wagon on steroids. Maybe Toyota is hoping rappers and soccer moms will buy it.

Classy looking chariot, but I bet allocation has already been confirmed so no point any of us trying to order one.

I like it, I feel it, I see it...Feel the Century!

Is the chauffeur included?

For those posters complaining about the design, have you seen the RR SUV? It is total joke, The Toyota is way better. Take a look for yourself:

https://forbes.com.br/forbeslife/2022/03/rolls-royce-cullinan-2022-um-santuario-sobre-rodas/

Japan doesn't have the EV charging infrastructure to support fast-charging of EVs with 100 kwh battery packs.

It just holds all the IP for the battery.

Who owns battery patents? 

The study found that Toyota Motor is by far the leading holder of solid-state battery patents with 1,331 known patents. Panasonic Holdings is a distant second with 445 patents. Idemitsu Kosan holds 272 patents. Fourth-place Samsung Electronics was the only non-Japanese company to enter the top five.

LondontimeToday  09:26 am JST

For those posters complaining about the design, have you seen the RR SUV? It is total joke, The Toyota is way better. Take a look for yourself:

Quite so.

If you are being chauffeured around in one of these, RR, Bentley or Toyota, you are either relaxing or working and couldn't care less what the car looks like from the outside, you only care about what the car can offer inside.

Owners of these cars do not park them on their driveways and admire them every time they leave their home, they do not wash and polish them every Sunday morning or drive round to the local gasoline stand to check the tyre pressures. Owners are in a totally different demographic to most of the rest of us.

The vast majority of Japanese will never have the means to buy such a vehicle

Maybe just outside of Tokyo.

Today I'm working at Tokyo Prince Hotel.

Everytime I come here I get a bit embarassed while parking my Mitsubishi Outlander underground in the sea of Bentleys, Porsches, Phantoms, McLarens, etc. you can't find a single car that doesn't shine or cost less than 10 million yen, parking the latest BMW here is like coming to a Ferrari owners' club in a Nissan Cube.

I really like this. What I like most is that Toyota builds it. And Toyota builds it in Japan. Japan makes the VERY best cars. I think I read that it’s a plug-in hybrid. That’s excellent. We need both and.

kurisupisu

The vast majority of Japanese will never have the means to buy such a vehicle but there will be plenty to drive around their wealthy employers....

[T]he richest group of adult population (1.1%) owns 45.8% of the total wealth in the world. So Toyota here made a smart business decision.

It's a plug in hybrid with a 3.5l V-6. Pricing starts at $170,000 USD.

It probably costs as much as Rolls Royce so may as well just get a roller. I mean rich people don't need to worry about reliability so much.

You could buy two of these for the price of a Roller and have money left over.

This is going to be the defacto Japanese SP (Security Police) SUVs that will escort the prime minister or royal family in long caravans to the airport and such just like they do in the US and in movies.

The only person I know who has/had an original Century wasn't especially rich and did not have a chauffeur. They drove the car themself.

I might have a look when I get a moment, to see if its nicer inside than the "executive lounge" 4 seater version of the Alphard people carrier. This Century doesn't look big enough to accommodate seats as big as the "business class" type ones in the Alphard or to allow them to fully recline.

So they turned the ugliest sedan in existence into possibly the ugliest SUV in existence. Smart. Nobody, outside Japan, with money wants a luxury Toyota. They should stick with Lexus.

Friend drove an older Century E-type here for a few years.

Used to park it in no parking areas (shortish times) and never got a ticket.

Once when questioned by the parking ticket giver, he said he was just waiting for "Tanaka-san" a local govt official.

OK - lol.

Legend once said, if you are too wealthy, you are Stealing, and if you are poor you are being ripped off.

Come on Toyota, you can do better, LOL

What an ugly looking thing, were the designers wearing blinkers when they drew it? My girlfriends father has a very old Japanese car called a Suzuki Cappuccino, it is tiny compared to this monstrosity.

When I first saw the image at the top of the article, before I read a word the first thought through my head was "yakuzamobile".

Awesome! Can't wait to put in my order. The neighbors will be impressed.

Ugly!

The design with the long head is not appropriate for tight streets in Japan...very difficult for drivers to check for pedestrians and bicycles on the crossings.

I would never buy...smart people would never buy such a cumbersome and impractical car.

Is it possible to make it uglier? That takes a really skilled designer to create that. Amazing.

Can't see it selling overseas. That kind of money buys you a high end Audi, BMW, Benz, Jaguar. The Toyota while having the same or probably better build quality and without a doubt, better reliability, will come with a Toyota badge. When paying for a prestige car, people want a prestige badge.

That looks like a car for old ojiisan who retire to the countryside.

@gogogo

I'd bet this Toyota lasts 10 times longer than anything produced by any other maker.

If you are buying a $200K vehicle, you don't care about longevity, you will likely replace vehicles every 3 years for that new car smell.

This is why Rolls-Royce and Range Rover have terrible reliability yet people keep buying them, since rich people won't keep them for more than 3~4 years unless it's some super rare collectable supercars.

A lot of folks on here clearly don't understand the Century's place in the Japanese automotive landscape and what it represents.

The type of person who would buy a new Century is from a very select slice of society. Ownership of a Century symbolizes and solidifies that rank. Concerns that you or I would have when buying a car simply do not matter to such an individual. It's a Century, only a very few people will buy one, they will not drive it, it will be made to incredibly exact standards to a level that most people will never notice and have details that wouldn't even occur to the average consumer.

Judging this by normal car or even standard luxury car standards misses the point. (For the record, I thought the sedan design was stately, but this SUV is fairly hideous. Again, to the owners of these cars, what you or I think is absolutely irrelevant. They have bought this car to show their rank in the Japanese hierarchy, and to have the highest possible level of Japanese craftmanship in their automobile, and that's that.)

@Arrrgh-Type

A lot of folks on here clearly don't understand the Century's place in the Japanese automotive landscape and what it represents.

I do, and I also know the Century won't sell outside of Japan, any more than how China's Hong Qi won't sell outside of China.

The only Asian luxury brand that sell to high ranking government officials outside of its home country is Genesis; Russian government officials swapped Mercedes for Genesis after Germany began to supply weapons to Ukraine.

The type of person who would buy a new Century is from a very select slice of society...

"Select" is the operative word here. It's a loss maker obviously given pricing, how can Toyota ever recoup development cost for what is essentially a halo car at these kinds of reported pricing. It's very limited planned sales volume (30 cars / month) is tiny, that's not even enough for Toyota execs. Ferrari delivers more than 20 times as much.

Toyota will select who it will sell these cars to, and I am guessing it will be those in power, and those whose influence Toyota can't buy in any other way.

Nice classy car, but not for any working person.

I do, and I also know the Century won't sell outside of Japan, any more than how China's Hong Qi won't sell outside of China.

It definitely will not sell well in the US for many reasons, and I'm sure we can guess those reasons, too.

[T]he richest group of adult population (1.1%) owns 45.8% of the total wealth in the world. So Toyota here made a smart business decision.

But as finally rich pointed out, it is not what rich ‘Japanese’ do.

The very rich here will buy a high end import car.

There is much more cache in being seen in a foreign car than a Japanese produced one

I don’t really care, but on a long road trip give me a German car any day of the week

Toyota Motor Corp unveiled Wednesday a sport utility vehicle type of its most luxurious brand, Century, as part of efforts to expand its line-up of premium cars to cater to the demand from wealthy customers.

And old people, by the looks of the car.

Wouldn't mind one overseas but prefer my MB here.

It definitely will not sell well in the US for many reasons, and I'm sure we can guess those reasons, too.

It is not intended for any other market than Japan. The only version of the Century ever sold outside Japan was its immediate predecessor. Some were sold in China and the Middle East, but only about 100. A few more were brought to the US for use by Toyota executives.