Built to mark a hundred years since the birth of the group's founder, first in Japan to adopt air suspension, and thirty years on one platform. The second generation got the first V12 fitted to a Japanese passenger car. One went through a Bonhams field sale for three thousand three hundred and seventy five pounds.
What it was built for
The Century was released in November 1967 to replace the Crown Eight, and in Toyota's own words it "was built to celebrate the centennial of the birth of Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of the Toyota group of companies". That is an unusual brief for a motor car. It was not built to win a segment or to answer a rival. It was built as a monument with a number plate, which is why almost nothing about it makes commercial sense and why all of it makes sense once you know.
The engineering, and one claim Toyota makes for itself
It started on a 3,000cc V8 OHV producing 150 PS, grew to 3,400cc in April 1973 and to 4,000cc in October 1982. Toyota states that it "adopted an air suspension for the first time among Japanese passenger cars". The styling was deliberately conservative and stately, drawn to a traditional Japanese taste at a moment when its domestic rivals were copying Detroit, and Toyota's own specification notes that the car "was finished with elaborate craftsmanship". It stayed on the market until 1997. Thirty years without changing its basic platform is not neglect at this end of a range, it is the point: a state car that looked different every four years would be a fashion item, and a fashion item is the one thing a state car may not be.
Then the V12
The second generation arrived on 18 April 1997 with the 1GZ-FE: 4,996cc, 280 PS at 5,200 rpm, DOHC, forty eight valves and VVT-i. Toyota calls it "the first V12 for a Japanese passenger car". We print first because that is Toyota's word. We do not print only, because nobody states that at first party and it is the sort of claim that gets repeated until it is treated as checked. The car grew with the engine: a hundred and sixty five millimetres more wheelbase, a hundred and fifty more length, and it carried a GOA shock absorbing body, six airbags and Skyhook air suspension.
And then the saleroom
In July 2020 Bonhams sold a 1993 first generation car, chassis V40-014042, for GBP 3,375 including premium, at its July Motoring Auction, catalogued as "One of only five on UK roads". Three honesty notes, all of which belong with the number. It is one car. It is six years ago. And it is the V8 rather than the V12, so it is not the twelve cylinder that made three and a half thousand pounds. It is still the number that carries the argument. A limousine built to commemorate a founder, first in its market with air suspension, hand finished by the manufacturer's own account, changing hands for less than a used family car, because the badge on the back says Toyota and the collector market has not decided that means anything yet.
How to buy one, and what to leave out
Two things we have cut and which you will see quoted elsewhere. The chassis code GZG50 and an end of production date of 2017 appear on enthusiast sites and on neither Toyota page we could open, so they are not here and should not be added from a forum. Toyota's own article on the hand finishing and the paintwork sits on a host that refuses automated reading, so we have not drawn on it. What is left is enough. Buy on the V12 if you can find one outside Japan, because that is the specification the story is about, and buy on service history, because a 1GZ-FE is a magnificent thing to own and an expensive thing to fix in a country with no dealer network that has ever seen one.
At a glance
The TGC view
The Collector's Drive looks for cars whose reputation has not caught up with what they are, and the Century is the purest version of it in this letter so far, because nothing about the car is in dispute. The engineering is documented by the manufacturer, the intent is documented by the manufacturer, and the market has simply not read either. We put clients in front of the people who import and maintain these, which on a 1GZ-FE outside Japan is the whole of the ownership question.
Want us to arrange it?
We hold the relationships, the rooms and the access. Tell us the dates and we handle the rest.
A big Fiat saloon of the early seventies is a hard thing to love. The coupé they put on top of it was drawn and built by the firm that was dressing Ferraris in the same years, in the same building, and fewer than four and a half thousand were made.
Read the review →Front wheel drive, inboard discs, no clutch pedal, a drag coefficient of 0.355 and Car of the Year for 1968. Then the engine failed under warranty and took the company with it. German dealers ask about fifteen thousand euros.
Read the review →A Maserati-engined grand tourer with hydropneumatic suspension and self-centring power steering, the most advanced GT of its day, sold under a badge the market still prices as a curiosity. Averages under forty thousand dollars.
Read the review →