It’s been 34 years since the last Cressida was sold in the US and there have been no whispers that the long-dormant nameplate might return. The final rear-wheel-drive gasoline Toyota sedan was last available new here in 1992. However, on May 12, 2026 Toyota renewed the Cressida trademark with the patent office of Paraguay.
As reported by Autoblog, Toyota recently filed an application with Paraguay’s National Directorate of Intellectual Property (DINAPI) to trademark the name Cressida. Once a flagship of the Toyota marque, in the US it was succeeded by the front-drive Avalon as Lexus took over the mantle of RWD sedans. However, in Paraguay the Cressida lived on until 1995.
The Cressida began life in 1978 as the international-market name for the Toyota Mark II. It lasted four generations, but if you want to be technical about it the lineage began in 1973 with the Corona Mark II for a total of five generations of the Toyota X chassis sold in the US.
Fans of the Cressida shouldn’t get their hopes up too much. It’s unlikely that in today’s sedan-averse climate Toyota would be adding another sedan to its lineup, much less a RWD one. Also, a trademark filing in Paraguay does not transfer to the US, and it doesn’t seem like Toyota USA really cares about its Cressida lineage anyway.
I went and looked at Toyota Paraguay and Lexus Paraguay, Toyota has a two cars then SUVs and trucks, and Lexus Paraguay only has SUVs… Sadly I cannot see how the Cressida would fit unless the name is stuck to an SUV, but it will be fun to keep an eye on in the future.
I decided to see what was happening at one site that because with “J” and ends with “alopnik,” and there was actually an article stating that folks are actually fatigued by the sheer amount of SUVs on the road today, and that four-door sedans are looking to make a comeback. Now, how trues this becomes depends on how the public responds to today’s factors: fuel prices, SUVs outnumbering cars, if the SUV image even reflects “sportiness” as much as it indirectly screams “senior citizen,” etc.
I also read, from somewhere on the interweb, that the station wagon was actually the luxury vehicle that flies under the radar, whereas SUVs are all about presence.