It joins an SUV with Crown badges in the company’s Chinese lineup.
We were distracted by the Highlander-based Crown Kluger, and nearly missed another Crown-badged Toyota that will be debuting at Auto Shanghai this week. This minivan has the famous Crown logo and is, like the SUV, a rebadged model. We are essentially dealing with a Vellfire that was offered by the local joint venture of the company and FAW.
If Vellfire, which is derived from velvet fire, doesn’t ring any bells then maybe the Alphard manufactured by the GAC/Toyota joint venture might. They’re almost identical but have different styling. As if all that weren’t enough, there’s also a Lexus-badged LM version available in certain markets. This minivan is dressed in a tuxedo. The Crown Vellfire will be launched in China exclusively, joining the Crown Kluger.
Oddly, Toyota has not released a Chinese press release about the Crown Vellfire. The only official images that we could find were these low-resolution ones. We’re sorry. With a little help from Google Translate and Chinese websites, we were able to find that the luxurious minivan can be as high as $141,700. We’ll remind everyone that the Lexus LM, with all its bells and whistles, retails for approximately $215,000 in People’s Republic.
The hybrid version is only available with a electrified 2.5-liter gasoline motor that produces 163 horsepower combined. This power is channeled to roads through a continuously variable transmission. The three-row minivan is the top model in the range, except for the Lexus version. It retains the Toyota logo at the steering wheel while the Crown Kluger receives the distinctive badge.
Toyota has already begun accepting orders from China, where Crown may be a sub-brand to refer to the most expensive versions of a model. The long-running Crown sedan in Japan is built on the TNGA platform. It is a standalone model that sits below the Century, which is the company’s absolute flagship.