Japan’s safest car is the Toyota Crown, a rear-wheel-drive luxury sedan that has just won the government’s Grand Prix award for top marks in crash testing.
The Crown has received the highest ever score under JNCAP (the Japan New Car Assessment Program and equivalent to America’s NHTSA) since testing procedures were updated in 2011 to include protections for pedestrians’ legs and insulation from electric shock after a collision, the latter a must considering the nation’s large number of hybrid and EV offerings.
The Crown is a mid-level luxury sedan sold in Japan and select Asian markets. Size-wise, it’s most similar to the Lexus GS and both give buyers a choice of 2.5-liter or 3.5-liter V6 or hybrid-electric engines. An additional TRD version shoehorns the GS’s 4.6-liter V8 under the hood. However, the Crown’s price point and content come in closer to that of a Lexus ES, which is not sold in Japan.
However, whereas the GS has 10 airbags, the Crown has only seven. The Crown also comes standard with Intelligent Clearance Sonar (ie, tailgating warning), a pop-up hood in case of pedestrian collision (on hybrid models only) and adaptive high-beams as to not blind oncoming traffic. Watch videos of the Crown undergoing testing below.
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