Did You Know? New Toyota Crown Has Oscillating Air Vents

Among a multitude of concepts, Toyota currently has on display at the 2017 Tokyo Motor Show a couple of large premium sedans that sit on top of the range in the domestic market Japan. The retro-flavored Century is the crown jewel of the company’s JDM offerings and is being shown in its full road-going glory alongside this, the near-production Crown scheduled to be launched in final guise in the summer of 2018.

One of the oldest nameplates in the automotive business, the Crown has been around since 1955 and has now reached its fifteenth generation that has a rather interesting feature: oscillating central air vents. It should be mentioned this is far from being the first car in the world to boast such a function, but it’s nice to see the swinging AC vents are still alive and kicking in 2017.

Pretty much like your air conditioner at home, school or at work, the vents move from left to right to guide the air as seen on older models like the Lexus LS 430 and a couple of Mazdas, such as the 626 and 929. Going back in time, the MX-6 also had oscillating air vents.

Do you know any other cars that have this cool feature?

As interesting as these may be, the Toyota Crown’s air vents can’t hold a candle to the one inside this Pontiac Grand Am:

Getting back to the car at hand, the latest and greatest Crown rides on the Toyota New Global Architecture and that means it has one or two things in common with the latest Camry. To our surprise, Toyota says it has tested the stately sedan at the Nürburgring in Germany to fine-tune the chassis and make the Crown more fun to drive.

By switching to TNGA hardware, it basically means the next-generation model will be all-new and that should pay dividends in all areas. If the production model will retain the concept’s size, it’s going to be slightly bigger than the outgoing model and will boast a longer wheelbase for extra legroom.

While Toyota says the Crown shown in Tokyo these days is technically a concept, we are not expecting any major changes on the final car as this looks just about ready to hit the assembly line.

Video: Mat Watson / Facebook

19