Toyopet Crown – First generation (RS/S10/S20/S30; 1955-1962)
The Crown was introduced in January 1955 in Japan to meet the demands of public transportation. The Crown was intended for private purchase, while the Master served in a commercial form as a taxi, both with the same 1.5 L Type R engine used on their previous car, the Toyopet Super. The front doors open conventionally, and the rear doors are "suicide doors", a feature also utilized on the Toyota AA, Toyota's first car. Small engine displacements were used to keep the vehicle affordable, as the Japanese government began to impose an annual road tax to help develop and maintain a national transportation infrastructure in 1950. The appearance of the Crown shows some similarities with the European Ford Versailles and Simca Vedette. The Toyota Patrol was a police car version of the 1955 Crown.

The Crown was much more popular than the Master due to the more compliant suspension of the Crown, and while the Master was intended for taxi service, the Crown was more accepted by the market over the Master, and more Crowns were sold into taxi service than the Master. The Crown was designed to replace the Super but Toyota was not sure if its independent front coil suspension and its suicide type rear doors were too radical for the taxi market to bear. So the Super was updated, renamed the Master and sold in tandem to the Crown, at Toyota Store locations. When sales of the Crown proved worthwhile, the Master was discontinued in November 1956 after being in production for only one year, and production facilities for the Master were transferred to the Crown. While the Master was discontinued the commercial vehicle based thereon, the Masterline, continued to be offered (utilities, wagons and vans) until 1959. A six-door wagon known as the Airport Limousine was shown as a concept car at the 1961 Tokyo Motor Show. It did not go into production.

In December 1955, the Crown Deluxe (RSD) was introduced, a posher model equipped with a radio and heater as standard. The initial RS model received a cosmetic update in 1958 to become the RS20, now with hooded headlights and a single-piece front windshield. In October 1959, Japan's first diesel-engine passenger car, the Crown Diesel, was introduced. Its C-series engine only had 40 PS (29 kW). In October 1960, the 1.5 L R engine was complemented by the larger 1.9 L (1,896 cc) 3R engine for a model called the RS30, originally only available in the Deluxe version. The 1900 was also available with the new two-speed Toyoglide automatic transmission. In April 1961, a Crown Standard 1900 was added.

Its coil and double wishbone independent front suspension was a departure from the leaf sprung beam axle front suspension used on most previous models but was similar to the independent front suspension used on the 1947 Toyopet SA. The live axle rear suspension was similar to that used on most of the previous models (unlike the trailing arm rear suspension used on the SA). Taxi versions were produced and beginning in March 1959 commercial versions of the vehicle were also available, as an estate wagon and a three- or six-seat coupe utility. These took over the "Toyopet Masterline" name in the Japanese domestic market, but usually received "Crown" badges in the export. The "Crown" name was previously in use by the Imperial limousine manufactured by Chrysler in the early 1950s.

In 1958, it introduced a ball joint suspension. Production of the double-cab Masterline pickup (RR19) started in April 1957 by the former Central Motors.

In August 1957, three Toyota delegates with the intent to establish a sales company in the United States introduced a white and black Crown and Crown Deluxe at a public relations event attended by dealers and the media. Both models were constructed with 50% thicker steel than the average American car at the time and the black Deluxe model was nicely appointed with lots of chrome and luxurious items like a radio, heater and whitewall tires which prompted the press to liken it to a "baby Cadillac". This promising initial showing along with the strong reputation of the Crown in Japan gave Toyota the confidence to pursue exports to the United States despite known high-speed performance issues. As a publicity stunt to demonstrate the car's reliability, Toyota staged a campaign common to American automakers: a coast-to-coast endurance run from Los Angeles to New York. The Toyopet was barely able to limp into Las Vegas before the project had to be called off.

Toyota's first export to the United States began with 30 Crown Deluxes in June 1958 after establishing Toyota Motor Sales USA the previous October, the first directly managed retail dealer (Hollywood Toyota) the previous February, U.S. wholesale and import companies, and a parts warehouse in Long Beach. Toyota also signs up 45 dealers to sell cars in its initial year, growing to 70 dealers by 1960 and 90 by 1962. In the effort to obtain certification from the California Highway Patrol for the sale of the Crown in California, Toyota shipped the cars without headlights and installed General Electric sourced sealed beam units upon arrival which met the required standard for brightness.

Since the car was designed for the muddy, slow, unpaved Japanese roads, it failed the mass urban landscape of the US because of its inability to keep up with traffic on the faster interstate highways, along with stability, noise and vibration concerns. The car was also very rigid and heavy for its size at 2700 pounds. Motor Trend reported "The Toyopet is so rigid that jacking up one wheel at the rear bumper quickly lifted the other rear wheel". They also observed an average of 23.5 mpg combined city/highway for 407 miles. To remedy the performance issues along with the resulting breakage of parts from being overly stressed, Toyota introduced the newer RS22L and the RS32L series Crown with the larger 3R engine and other improvements for high-speed driving in July 1960.

For 1958, Toyota introduced the Crown in sedan form only (Standard and Deluxe) with a base price of US$2,187 (equivalent to about $23,096 in 2023). Options included $94 AM radio and $75 whitewall tires. By comparison, an optioned up Crown was $32 more than the base Chevy Del Ray and $10 more than the Rambler Rebel V8 sedan. Total sales for the initial year were 287. For 1959, sales were again limited to only sedan models and despite a price boost to $2,329 for the Deluxe model, sales more than tripled to 967 units. For 1960, Toyota added a wagon body style ($2,111 for the two-door, $2,211 for the four-door) but in the midst of Detroit's Big Three compact cars (Ford Falcon, Chevy Corvair and Plymouth Valiant), sales fell to 659 units. For 1961, the Crown was being sold with the newer 3R engine and alongside the new smaller Tiara model with the Crown's outgoing 1.5L engine. Only the Custom sedan and wagon were offered ($1,795 and $2,080 respectively). Total sales for 1961 reached only 225 units, trailing off to 74 for 1962, and finally 28 for 1963. Total sales for the Toyopet Crown RS series in the United States is 2,240.

By the end of 1960, Toyota Motor Sales USA had accumulated 1.42 million dollars in losses from lackluster sales of the Crown. To prevent any further loss, all passenger car imports were suspended and new management structures were established to refocus all sales efforts on the Toyota Land Cruiser with profitability expected from selling 50 to 60 per month until the development of a new car suitable for the US market.

In November 2000, Toyota released the Origin, a retro version of the RS series Crown to celebrate 100 million vehicles having been built in Japan.

Source: Wikipedia