When Toyota teased its upcoming Gazoo Racing GT3, eagle-eyed viewers noticed that the Century phoenix joined Toyota’s other major brands — Toyota, Lexus, GR, and Daihatsu — with a standalone logo in the lineup. Turns out that Toyota is indeed spinning off Century into its own ultra-luxury marque. It’s part of ToMoCo’s “Five Brand Project” that will launch an “above-Lexus” family of cars.
Since its 1967 debut the Century has been the pinnacle of luxury cars in Japan. The favored car of government officials, captains of industry, and anyone important enough to employ chauffeur, it has preserved the Japanese traditions of craftsmanship, quality, and quiet grandeur in vehicular form. That’s why in almost 60 years of production there have been only three generations of the Century.
However, with the introduction of Lexus in 1989, Toyota had a new luxury marque that was supposed to represent a more premium car than those wearing a Toyota badge. That wasn’t much of an issue in the home market, where the Lexus LS and SC were Toyota Celsiors and Soarers, but things got complicated when the Lexus brand was introduced to Japan in 2005.
How could the best of the best, the ultimate flagship, still be badged a Toyota when Lexus was ostensibly the world-class luxury brand? Akio Toyoda had been exploring the idea of a car above Lexus that could take on brands like Rolls-Royce and Maybach. Century was right under his nose all along.
Then in 2023 Toyota introduced a second model to be adorned with the Century phoenix, an SUV. In a sense, the path became obvious. The Century should be positioned above Lexus, and to do that it had to become its own brand.
“In a sense, Lexus will be freer to act,” said Simon Humphreys, Toyota’s chief branding officer. “Lexus should continue to take on challenges as a pioneer. Century will take on the high-end market as the top of the top, one of one.”
To drive that point home Toyota will unveil a Century coupe at the Japan Mobility Show later this month. Traditionally Centurys have been dark, subdued colors like black or deep blue. The Century coupe is a departure from that, finished in a bright pearl orange. Humphries created the commercial introducing the coupe, which uses flowing cloth to convey the progress of Toyota from a manufacturer of looms to a maker of unrivaled automobiles.
Does this new direction finally put Century in its rightful place in the hierarchy, or is it a blasphemous deviation from decades of tradition? We shall see when the third Century model is fully revealed at the JMS.
