Toyota has created a chop-top version of its four-door Crown SUV, and it looks… certainly A Thing. It’s built on top of Toyota’s TNGA-K platform, which has underpinned a number of models previously including the Camry and RAV4.
It’s a one-off built to participate in the Grand Sumo championship’s victory parade, and also because nobody is likely to actually buy one.
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Having removed the pillars from A through to D, and developed a sedan-style trunk to replace the original tailgate, Toyota then raised the rear passenger floor by four centimetres and threw in larger leather seats.
Toyota used 3D printers to design most of the new components to allow them to bolt on as seamlessly as possible, but this meant the engineers had to forge these one-off parts by hand. So you could say it's… coachbuilt?
The interior does remain elegant and calming, though, with plenty of cream leather to support the reassuring trim. The front seat headrests also adopt a unique inward-facing design to cushion the driver and passenger a bit more comfortably from the wave of awkward pedestrian stares.
No word on powertrain changes, so we expect it to retain the 2.5-liter inline-four engine and dual electric motor set-up, which results in around 236hp and 221Nm of torque delivered through an all-wheel drive system.
Toyota has a habit of making quirky one-off concepts in the past, such as a rally-bred version of its Mirai hydrogen fuel cell car, and we don’t expect this to end with the creation of its sumo wrestler chariot.
NOTE: This story first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
