- Toyota unveiled the 2025 Crown Signia ahead of the 2023 L.A. Auto Show.
- The Crown Signia replaces the Venza as Toyota’s five-seat mid-size SUV.
- Its 243-hp hybrid powertrain pairs exclusively with all-wheel drive.
If the Toyota Crown’s first stateside appearance in all its high-riding-sedan glory doesn’t appeal to you, perhaps something a bit more mainstream will. And what could be more conventional than a mid-size SUV with high-mpg aspirations? If that’s more up your alley, the 2025 Toyota Crown Signia will come as a welcome surprise.
Okay, maybe it’s not a surprise—Toyota let the cat out of the bag with an early teaser—but it’s welcome nevertheless. The 2025 Crown Signia arrives as a mid-size SUV to replace the Venza, which will bow out of the lineup after the 2024 model year. And it’s a pretty sensible replacement, building on the Venza’s positive qualities while enhancing a few things along the way.
Under the hood resides a naturally aspirated 2.5-liter four-cylinder. That mates to three electric motors—two sandwiched into the front half, and one out back providing rear-wheel traction as needed—to make a combined 243 horsepower, 24 hp more than the Venza’s similar setup. All-wheel drive is standard, as is a continuously variable automatic transmission. While CVTs aren’t exactly known for their towing prowess, the Crown Signia can drag up to 2700 pounds, a useful improvement over the Venza, which wasn’t rated to tow at all.
Stylistically, the Crown Signia is a carbon copy of the Crown Estate SUV that will be sold in other markets. The front end borrows the thin running lights and separate lower headlights from the Crown sedan, but its taller front bumper carries a greater similarity to the bZ4X. A character line runs along the otherwise low-drama side to a rear end that’s about as conventional as it can be drawn, with some thin taillights and little visual fuss.
Crown owners may look at the Signia’s cabin and say, “Hey, that’s my cabin, you stole it!” That’s a good thing, because the Crown’s cabin is pretty delightful overall. The front passenger is wrapped in a cocoon of trim that rises up from the center console, while the driver stares down a pair of standard 12.3-inch displays, one serving as a gauge cluster and one handling infotainment duties. Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard, and there are three USB ports up front and a pair for folks in the back.
Toyota will offer the Crown Signia in XLE and Limited trims. The XLE carries a good amount of standard equipment: in addition to the aforementioned tech, the base Crown Signia comes with 19-inch wheels, combination fabric and vinyl seats, a heated leather steering wheel, a power liftgate, and a six-speaker audio system. The Limited tacks on a panoramic glass roof, 21-inch wheels, leather upholstery, heated rear seats, parking sensors, and an 11-speaker JBL audio system.
On the safety front, both trims come standard with Toyota’s TSS 3.0 suite of driver-assist features, which includes automatic emergency braking, lane-departure warning, blind-spot monitoring, lane-keeping assist, automatic high beams, and Proactive Driving Assist, which can aid braking and steering in curves and in traffic. An optional package for the Limited beefs up that suite further with a surround-view camera, lane-change assist, and Traffic Jam Assist, which will permit hands-free operation in certain situations under 25 mph.
The 2025 Toyota Crown Signia will make its way to dealerships in 2024. Pricing has not yet been revealed, but considering the Crown sedan is more expensive than the Venza, we’d be surprised if the Crown Signia didn’t come in above both, which would put it somewhere in the neighborhood of $45,000 to $55,000, depending on trim.
Senior Editor
Cars are Andrew Krok’s jam, along with boysenberry. After graduating with a degree in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009, Andrew cut his teeth writing freelance magazine features, and now he has a decade of full-time review experience under his belt. A Chicagoan by birth, he has been a Detroit resident since 2015. Maybe one day he’ll do something about that half-finished engineering degree.
Source: Motor - aranddriver.com
