Tag Archives: Toyota

News

Toyota Century Coupe Could Revive the V-12

Toyota has never been a company that chases headlines for the sake of it. But the Century Coupe—first seen as a blazing-orange concept and now reportedly headed for production—looks like a deliberate attempt to do something un-Toyota: shock the luxury world awake. And if the latest whispers out of Japan are true, it might do so with the most outrageous powertrain Toyota has ever put into a road car.

Forget the sensible 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 that underpins the GR GT. The Century Coupe is rumored to arrive with a twin-turbo 6.0-liter V-12 paired with plug-in-hybrid assistance, good for more than 800 horsepower. Yes, a Toyota with a V-12 in the 2020s. That sentence alone feels like it was smuggled in from an alternate timeline.

For a brand that just spun the Century nameplate into a standalone ultra-luxury marque, the move actually makes a twisted kind of sense. Century isn’t Lexus-plus. It’s Toyota’s answer to Rolls-Royce: understated, obsessively engineered, and designed to be bought by people who never talk about what they drive. A twelve-cylinder halo car is exactly the kind of statement that tells the world this isn’t just another fancy Camry.

A V-12, but Whose?

What’s still a mystery is where this V-12 would come from. Toyota hasn’t built one since the Century sedan quietly retired its own in-house twelve-cylinder in favor of a hybrid V-8 in 2018. That old engine made a modest 425 horsepower—not exactly the stuff of hypercar legend.

One theory floating around Japanese outlet Mag X is that Toyota could Frankenstein together two of BMW’s turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-sixes—the same basic architecture used in the outgoing Supra. On paper, that gets you a neat, modern 6.0-liter V-12 without starting from scratch. In reality, it sounds like a branding nightmare. Century is supposed to be Toyota’s purest expression of itself, not a luxury coupe with Bavarian DNA hiding under the hood.

More likely, Toyota will do what it always does at the top of its game: quietly spend a fortune developing something bespoke, over-engineered, and built to last far longer than anyone expects.

Luxury With a Launch Control

To keep all that power from going up in smoke, the Century Coupe is expected to come standard with Toyota’s E-Four all-wheel-drive system. Gearbox choices are rumored to include either an eight-speed or a ten-speed automatic—both very Toyota solutions, focused less on drama and more on smooth, unflappable torque delivery.

The production car should stay visually close to the concept, though some of the weirder elements are likely to disappear. Those chunky black wheel arches and the SUV-like ride height felt more like a design team flex than a coherent statement. Expect something sleeker, lower, and more fitting for a six-figure grand tourer.

Inside, things should become more conventional, too. The concept’s two-seat layout—with the lone rear passenger riding behind the front passenger in chauffeur-spec comfort—was amusing but wildly impractical. A proper four-seat layout makes far more sense, especially if Toyota wants this thing to actually get driven.

Bentley Money, Toyota Promises

The price? Start mentally north of $200,000 and work your way up. Reports suggest Japanese pricing between 30 and 70 million yen, which puts the Century Coupe squarely in Bentley Continental GT and Rolls-Royce Wraith territory.

That’s bold, but Toyota isn’t trying to out-plush Bentley. Its pitch is different: combine that level of exclusivity and performance with something those brands don’t usually brag about—bulletproof reliability. If Toyota really can build an 800-plus-horsepower hybrid V-12 coupe that doesn’t need a specialist on speed dial, that could be the Century’s real party trick.

The production Century Coupe is expected to arrive in 2027, timed to celebrate the model’s 60th anniversary and the full launch of Century as its own brand. And while nothing is official, it’s hard to imagine Toyota spending this kind of money just to keep it a Japan-only curiosity.

If it does come to North America, the Century Coupe won’t just be another ultra-luxury import. It’ll be a philosophical grenade lobbed into a segment dominated by European excess: a quiet, terrifyingly powerful reminder that Toyota, when it wants to, can build absolutely anything.

Source: Toyota

Tuning

Toyota Crystal Eye 60 Prius

For most of its life, the Toyota Prius has been the vehicular equivalent of beige carpet. Sensible, efficient, and about as emotionally charged as a toaster. But the current-generation Prius changed that narrative. It finally looks… good. Genuinely good. Toyota swapped the fridge-on-wheels silhouette for something sleek, low, and just edgy enough that you don’t feel like you need to apologize for driving it.

Naturally, that meant the tuners were going to get involved.

Enter the Crystal Eye 60 Prius, a one-off show car from Japan that answers a question nobody asked: What if the Prius were designed by a cyberpunk samurai with a Fast & Furious DVD collection?

The car debuted at the Tokyo Motor Show, where subtlety went to die. Built by lighting specialist Crystal Eye with help from Body Shop Kikuta, this Prius doesn’t just push the styling envelope—it shreds it into confetti and lights it on fire.

A Prius That Looks Ready to Commit Crimes

Up front, the car wears a splitter so large it could double as municipal snow-removal equipment. Above it sits a ventilated hood that suggests track-day intent, even if the powertrain underneath is still politely humming along in hybrid serenity. Wide, flat aluminum fender extensions flare outward, wrapping around 20-inch Work wheels that gleam like jewelry stolen from a supercar.

It’s the rear, though, where things really spiral into glorious madness.

A towering wing sprouts from the tailgate, flanked by angular fins that jut out like mechanical paddles. Beneath it all sits a massive rear diffuser, because nothing says “aerodynamic efficiency” like a Prius that looks like it’s about to enter a time-attack race.

And then there are the taillights: custom hexagonal LED units developed by Crystal Eye themselves. They’re sharp, futuristic, and will soon be sold to anyone who wants their own Prius—or anything else—to look like it belongs in a dystopian anime.

Laying Frame in a Hybrid

The entire thing rides on Air Rex Odin air suspension, allowing the Prius to drop to mere millimeters above the pavement when parked. It doesn’t just sit low—it lies in wait. It’s the kind of stance normally reserved for supercars and show queens, not for a plug-in hybrid whose natural habitat is the Whole Foods parking lot.

Yet here we are.

Still a Prius… Technically

Under all the carbon, aluminum, LEDs, and bosozoku-inspired chaos, the Crystal Eye 60 is still a Prius. It uses Toyota’s most powerful plug-in hybrid setup, good for 223 PS, which is respectable—but not exactly the stuff of street-racing legends. There are no turbochargers hiding beneath those vents, no engine swaps yet lurking in the shadows.

That makes this build all the more hilarious and brilliant. It looks like it should be illegal in at least three countries, yet it’s still technically road-legal in Japan.

Why It Exists

This Prius was never meant to be a production car. It’s a rolling billboard, built to showcase Crystal Eye’s lighting products and grab attention at auto shows. And it absolutely succeeds. In a sea of tastefully modified sports cars and hypercars, the most outrageous thing in the room is… a Prius.

Somehow, Toyota’s once-boring hybrid has become a blank canvas for wild creativity. And in the hands of Japan’s tuning culture, it has transformed into something that blurs the line between show car, anime villain, and rolling art installation.

If this is the future of the Prius, count us in—even if we’re still secretly laughing at it.

Source: Toyota

News

Toyota’s Mystery Three-Row EV Is Almost Here

Toyota’s slow-burn teaser campaign just took a sharp turn toward the real world. The company has finally dropped its first official photo and video of its upcoming SUV—and confirmed that the full reveal lands February 10. After months of speculation, patent sleuthing, and corporate breadcrumbs, we now have something resembling a shape. And that shape is unmistakably large.

Everything we’re seeing points to a three-row electric SUV, a long-promised piece of Toyota’s EV puzzle that now appears to be ready for primetime. The interior shots give the game away: a second row with captain’s chairs suggests either a six- or seven-seat layout, and the sheer amount of glass—thanks to a panoramic sunroof—makes this thing feel more family road-trip than futuristic pod.

Toyota’s designers haven’t been asleep at the wheel, either. A full digital gauge cluster sits ahead of the driver, while a big tablet-style infotainment screen dominates the center stack. USB ports tucked into the bases of the C-pillars hint at a vehicle that expects rear-seat passengers to be as plugged in as the powertrain. In other words, this is a modern, tech-forward hauler designed for people who actually use the third row.

But the real story is what this SUV is, not just what it looks like.

Back in 2021, Toyota showed off the bZ Large SUV concept—then called the bZ5X—a three-row EV that was supposed to be part of a massive 15-vehicle electric blitz. Since then, Toyota has quietly stepped back from the awkward “bZ” branding while reshuffling its EV strategy, but one thing has remained consistent: a big, U.S.-built, three-row electric SUV was always coming.

And this sure looks like it.

Patent images we uncovered earlier, especially of the concept’s rear end, line up eerily well with what Toyota just teased. The proportions, the body creases, and that wide rear light bar all match. Even the window shape—with its distinctive triangular base at the front—lines up with the filings. If this isn’t the production version of the bZ Large SUV, then Toyota has pulled off one of the most convincing misdirects in recent memory.

What Toyota hasn’t told us yet is the name—and that’s where things get spicy.

While industry insiders have been calling this thing the bZ5X for years, Toyota’s growing discomfort with the “bZ” label suggests something more familiar might be in the works. Enter Highlander.

Toyota already builds a wildly successful three-row crossover in the Grand Highlander, which absolutely crushed its shorter sibling last year. The standard Highlander’s sales fell more than 37 percent to just over 56,000 units, while the Grand Highlander surged nearly 91 percent to almost 137,000. That kind of split practically begs for a rethink—and electrifying the regular Highlander would be one way to do it.

An electric Highlander—or even something like a “bZ Highlander”—would make a lot of sense. Ford proved with the Mustang Mach-E that familiar nameplates can smooth the transition to electric, even when the vehicle underneath is something entirely new. Customers trust the Highlander name, and Toyota would be wise to lean on that goodwill as it tries to get conservative buyers comfortable with plugging in.

We already know this SUV will be built in Kentucky with batteries sourced from Toyota’s North Carolina facility, and production is expected to begin in the first half of 2026. The reveal next week in California should finally lock in the name, the specs, and just how serious Toyota is about re-entering the EV race it once helped invent—and then strangely abandoned.

So call it the bZ5X, the Grand Crown, or the Electric Highlander. What matters is that Toyota’s long-teased three-row EV is real, it’s coming, and it’s about to become one of the most important vehicles the company has launched in a decade.

And in a market where big electric family haulers are still thin on the ground, Toyota just showed up to the fight with something that actually looks ready to sell.

Source: Toyota