Brand New 2023 Toyota Crown: Fancy, Snazzy, Elegant, Wunderbar

If you don’t need a hatchback or SUV and would like a little old-fashioned elegance added to your daily life, you might truly enjoy the 2023 Toyota Crown, a rolling living room of comfort and poshness that does indeed keep the outside-world outside. 

The new Crown is meant as a replacement for the Toyota Avalon, which was a stretch limo of sorts that I reviewed in 2021 for our sister publication Queer Forty. This Crown is not as large as the Avalon (a car I really loved) or the Crown Victoria of days past, but the elegance is still ever-present. 

I mean, just take a look at this beauty in bronze, seen here.  This is for when you need to put on a tuxedo for that special LGBTQIA+++ charity event. Or go to your sister-in-law’s wedding and show the family that you really are smarter than the average Bear.  Or – you found a drive-thru with extra wide lanes and you just really need chili cheese fries, and you promise yourself to be extra careful. 

As a hybrid sedan, its profile is raised so you can step into it like an SUV (sorta, because the battery is under the boot). All-Wheel Drive is standard. It’s possible to squeeze up to 42 miles per gallon out of this crown jewel. Horsepower can range from 236 to 340, depending on which trim you get.

Road and Track calls the new Crown’s design “quirky” and, yeah, I can see that, compared to the old, very stylish Avalon. They also call the ride “floaty”, which it is, so if you are looking for that rugged off-road, go-get-‘em challenge of today’s cars, this ain’t it.

Starting at just under $40K US, you will enjoy the ride and should be okay as far as interior space (but, as always, please climb inside first). Power and heated front seats, dual climate zones, 19-inch alloy wheels, 12.3-inch touchscreen, Forward Collision Mitigation, Lane-Keep Assist, Blind-Spot Warning, Adaptive Cruise Control and a feature called Safe-Exit Assist, which can prevent a passenger from opening a door into oncoming traffic… all standard equipment.  

I tested the Crown Platinum, and, well, golly, items like surround-view cameras, paddle shifters, an advance park system which allows the car to park itself, 21-inch-two-tone alloy wheels… is all this necessary? Maybe not……  

But being a Lazy Luxury Bear is a good thing, something to be enjoyed. And the 2023 Crown can be considered your inheritance from your Old Queen Auntie Liz from London who passed last year and didn’t even bequeath you a castle or a carriage. 

Many people don’t think that Bears can be elegant enough for a car like the Toyota Crown, including us Bears.  While we can be rough and tumble, we do have our sophisticated side.  The brand-new Toyota Crown can help us tap into that side of our full-figured personas. 

Look, for example, at all the many facets of cartoon characters like Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo Bear.  Even they put on formal wear when needed. 

Of course, somehow, they always forgot to put on pants…….