The Toyota Crown Comfort is possibly the most conservative, staid car ever made. And that’s why it’s hilarious that Toyota built a limited-edition supercharged model. It might just be the most ridiculous factory performance edition ever.
The Crown Comfort, for those of you not interested in automotive dinosaurs, was introduced in 1995 with purposefully out-of-date design. It was actually a significant step back in technology than the Toyota Crown that preceded it. The Crown Comfort did have unibody construction, which was pretty modern, but everything else in the car was decades-old technology. The Crown Comfort lost the previous generation’s all-indenpendent suspension and four-wheel disc brakes in favor of a live rear axle and drum brakes on them, too. The Crown Comfort was also narrower and taller than the ordinary Crown that preceded it.
The idea was to build a simple, sturdy vehicle for fleet (particularly taxi) use. Think of it as a Japanese Checker cab.
Then in 2003, as Japanese car expert Nori Yaro explains, Toyota took 59 units from the assembly line and fitted them with a Ogura Clutch TX07 supercharger.
The basic Crown Comfort made about 80 horsepower. This TRD supercharged GT-Z model made 160.
The officially-titled ‘Crown Comfort TRD GT-Z Supercharger’ also got TRD bucket seats, TRD gauges, and a TRD shift knob and steering wheel.
Very retro 15-inch Watanabe wheels came with, though the suspension was unaltered.
I can’t think of a car that was less deserving of a performance edition, let alone one that actually got the treatment.
Why Toyota made these cars, I do not know.
Photo Credits: Toyota
Contact the author at raphael@jalopnik.com.