Toyota Crown Hardtop SL (1969)
Publication: Car Graphic
Format: Road Test
Date: February 1969
Author: “C/G Test Group” (uncredited)
Summary: Two-door coupe version of the Crown S. Rear seat comfort is not compromised, six-cylinder SOHC engine revs easily to 7000rpm or more, extremely quiet up to high speeds, conversation is possible at 120km/h, brakes are powerful but require excessive pressure, steering is heavy at low speeds, ride is generally good but a bit stiff on bad roads.
Road testing the Toyota Crown Hardtop SL
Recently, white Crown S sedans have become a common sight on the streets, usually with middle-aged drivers who are likely the cars’ private owners at the wheel. Toyota, ever quick to recognize trends and seize an opportunity, announced a hardtop model of the Crown on November 1 last year, aimed primarily at mature sporting drivers and well-dressed enthusiasts. In Europe, most high-end six-cylinder sedans, such as the Opel Commodore and Ford Taunus, also come in coupe versions, but among domestically produced models, this Crown is the first 2-liter coupe of its kind.
The Crown Hardtop is a model with a fashionable hardtop coupe body mounted on the same perimeter frame as the sedan. The roofline is 25mm lower than the sedan, and the overall length is slightly shorter. The front end styling also gives a different impression from the sedan, with rectangular headlamps and large sidelights that wrap around to the sides. The hardtop comes in two types: the standard model and the sporty SL. The SL is equipped with the same M-B type engine (twin SU carburetors, 125ps/5800rpm) as the Crown S, has a firmer suspension, and is equipped with standard front servo-operated disc brakes. Two transmissions are available: a 4-speed floor shift and a three-speed Toyoglide. The model we tested was the SL with a 4-speed manual gearbox (priced at 1.2 million yen).
The impression of the interior is closer to that of a European car from a US-owned manufacturer (such as the aforementioned Opel or Ford) than that of a purely American car. The trim is similar to that in the Crown Super Deluxe: truly luxurious, and unified with a calm good taste. The front reclining seats are thicker than those in the Crown S, and stand comparison to those in a Mercedes. The backrest can be finely adjusted from the neutral position, two steps forward and 20 steps backward (each in 3°20′ increments). The built-in headrest can be adjusted up to 110mm and has a locking device, which is a very thoughtful feature. It is also commendable that the car’s owner’s manual (those from Toyota are, without exception, gracious and well-written) also contains detailed instructions on how to use the headrest correctly. The standard three-point seat belt is a retractable type, which is fine when not in use, but the return spring is strong and puts pressure on the abdomen, so you will want to take it off when driving long distances at high speeds, when you need the belt most. Some retractable belts made in foreign countries stop at the extended position, like a window blind, so we would like the manufacturer to do some more research in this area.
The interior dimensions of this car are completely international, and there is a sense of spaciousness throughout. Even a large driver who has felt cramped in any Japanese car up to now will be able to stretch his arms and legs out fully in this Crown Hardtop. The top 10cm or so of the windshield is tinted for anti-glare purposes, but at night this slightly interferes the view up and forward (such as when looking at traffic lights). However, this was probably also due to our own lack of body weight. For portlier gentlemen, such as those likely to buy Crown Hardtops, the seat would probably settle just enough, so it may be fine.
The dashboard is basically the same as in the Crown S, with three large gauges, each an impressive 15cm in diameter. However, the positions of the rev counter and clock are reversed compared to the sedan, with the rev counter directly in front of the driver. All gauges use white markings on a black background, making them easy to read day or night. The controls are well thought out and easy to use, except for the dash-mounted light and wiper knobs (made of soft material and with a flat shape), which are a little bit far to reach from a comfortable driving position. The other exception is the left door lock, which is difficult to reach because the wide door hides it behind the headrest; from the driver’s side, it is virtually impossible. Since the car has power windows, we would like the door locks to be electromagnetically powered as well, like those in the Century, or at least relocated to the door panel, as in the Corona Mark II. In terms of safety-conscious design, the Crown is almost perfect in other respects, so we would say that this is the missing finishing touch.
In stylish coupes, space in the back seats is often sacrificed to create a beautiful roofline, but in the Crown Hardtop this has been avoided, and rear spaciousness rivals that of the sedan. The hardtop’s interior dimensions are only 60mm shorter in overall length and 15mm shorter in overall height than the sedan’s, and there is ample headroom and legroom for long trips. The doors open very wide, and there are no center pillars, of course, making it easy to get in and out of the back seats. However, the extremely long doors extend as far as 110mm when opened, so you must be careful of cars next to you. The doors are held in place in two stages, but the checks feel a little weak for the doors’ weight.
If one were to summarize the character of the Crown Hardtop SL in a single phrase, it would be a scaled-down American sports coupe. This applies not only in terms of style and size, but also in terms of behavior. With 125ps powering 1295kg of luxurious coupe, and with comfort clearly the priority, it doesn’t have the powerful feel that is typical of American cars, but it does have a similar atmosphere. First of all, the six-cylinder SOHC engine is exceptionally quiet and smooth. Off the line, the revs rise gently, and the body sways due to the reaction force of the torque, just like a V8 American car. Although the red zone on the rev counter starts from 6400rpm, the engine climbs to 7000rpm wiillingly. The balancing is exceptional, and we are tempted to say this is exactly how a seven-bearing six-cylinder engine should feel. The 600-700rpm idle is so quiet that, on more than one occasion, we found ourselves blipping the throttle while waiting at a traffic light, wondering if the engine was actually running. In fact, immediately after a cold start in the morning, it was entirely possible that it wasn’t. If the engine wasn’t allowed to warm up for at least five minutes, it tended to stall at the first two or three stops. In that respect, it is not an engine that wakes up easily.
When we first received the car, the odometer showed just a little over 750km. We were told that it had just finished being run-in, but the engine still felt very tight, and we couldn’t help feeling a little uneasy about subjecting it to top-speed testing at Yatabe. However, the average lap speed on the 5.5km circuit was 168.7km/h, which was a little higher than the catalog value (165km/h). At this speed, the engine was turning about 5950rpm, slightly above the maximum output speed of 125ps/5800rpm, and we got the impression that it had plenty of power in reserve. We drove continuously at top speed for three laps, totaling about six minutes, and the water temperature and oil pressure gauges (built into the rev counter just in front of the driver, making them easy to read) both remained completely normal.
As mentioned above, with a curb weight of 1295kg and an engine output of 125ps, the Crown Hardtop is not particularly powerful for its weight, but performance is more than sufficient for the car’s intended purpose. 0-400m takes 18.3 seconds, and the car reaches 150km/h in about 2km from a standing start. The noise level inside the car is surprisingly low. At 120km/h, you can listen to the radio without turning the volume up, and even at 140km/h, normal conversation with a passenger is still possible. Apart from its powerful roar when accelerating hard, mechanical noise from the engine is well-suppressed up to high rpm, and road noise is blocked out very well (the Crown’s separate body and perimeter frame chassis have an extremely advantageous effect in terms of noise control).
For a driver accustomed to high speeds, 150km/h is a practical cruising speed that could be easily sustained on the highway if the law allowed it. The engine speed is only 5200rpm at that speed, 1200rpm below the redline, so the general noise level (the loudest being wind noise) is still within a range that can be tolerated for long periods of time. Directional stability is outstanding, and the Crown will go as straight as an arrow just by placing one’s hands lightly on the steering wheel. At the start of the tests at Yatabe, we set the air pressure of the Bridgestone 6.95-14-4PR tires to 2.2/2.3kg/cm², and even after sustaining a speed of 140-165km/h for about 60km, the air pressure only rose to 2.6/2.7kg/cm², and the heat generation was not much different than that from driving on normal roads with normal air pressure. In this sense, drivers of the Crown Hardtop SL can sink back into the comfortable seats and enjoy high-speed cruising without any worries.
At the same time, this engine is extremely flexible, producing a large torque output of over 15kgm over a wide range, from around 1500rpm up to 5800rpm. In top gear, it accelerates smoothly, quietly, and without knocking from as low as 30km/h (just over 1000rpm). The throttle response is particularly good from around 2500rpm to 5500rpm, and it responds sharply just by resting the weight of your foot on the pedal, rather than consciously pressing down. In English, a smooth six-cylinder engine is often described as a “silky six,” and this engine is truly worthy of such praise. As noted earlier, the car had only been driven about 750km when we first received it, and the engine and gear shift lever were quite stiff. However, when we tested the same car again ten days later, it had accumulated about 2,000km, and the engine was completely run in, feeling lighter and more responsive, almost like a different car. From our experience with the C/G Corona Mark II Hardtop, Toyota cars often seem to be extremely tight at first, but then loosen up quickly after 1,500-2,000km. For this reason, considering the car’s mileage when the we collected data at Yatabe, it can be said that the car was not yet demonstrating its full potential.
Furthermore, a Toyota technician mentioned that the standard spark plugs (Denso W20EP) were prone to fouling during cold starts, but our experience showed no signs of this happening. For the tests at Yatabe, we used slightly cooler W22EP spark plugs, but we forgot to change them aferwards and continued to use the same spark plugs driving around Tokyo. Even so, we experienced no issues such as difficult starting or fouling. So in the end, Toyota’s concerns appear to have been unfounded.
The Hardtop SL’s 4-speed floor-shift gearbox is the same as that in the Crown S. The gear ratios are appropriate for the power and weight, but even with this flexible engine, it is difficult to start from second gear unless you slip the clutch quite a bit. The practical maximum speeds in the first three gears are 45, 75, and 115km/h (equivalent to 6000rpm each). The synchro is extremely powerful, the shift stroke is short, and the shift action, which was initially stiff, became much easier after 2,000km of driving.
The clutch is heavy by modern standards, but engages very smoothly and easily. Moreover, during the harsh standing-start acceleration tests, clean launches were possible with very little clutch slip or wheelspin, and even after repeated hard starts, there was no sign of clutch burnout. One of the reasons such clean starts ar possible is that the rear axle is firmly located (the rigid axle is supported by a radius arm, a Watt’s linkage, and a Panhard rod, and the springs are of course coils), so there is no axle tramp even when the clutch is suddenly released.
The brakes are servo-equipped discs at the front and duo-servo drums at the rear. Everyone who drove the car was surprised at first by how heavy the brakes were. Even normal braking in the city (a deceleration of around 0.3-0.4g) requires more than 20kg of pedal effort. The braking force itself is strong, recording a maximum of nearly 1g, but the pedal effort required to achieve this is close to 40kg. Once you get used to it, this is not a serious problem, but at the very least, these are not the sort of brakes a lady in high heels would want to use. Apart from the heavy pedal force, these are basically very good brakes. Response is progressive according to pedal pressure, and because the rear wheels have a proportioning control valve, they remain stable even under sudden braking. Squealing from the discs is almost entirely absent. Even in our fade test, in which 0.5g braking is applied ten times in a row from 100km/h, with 1km intervals in between, pedal effort required only increased by about 10% in the latter half of the test. Currently, such conditions hardly exist in real-world driving, but in the near future, as traffic on the Tomei Expressway increases, repeated sudden braking at speeds of over 100km/h will likely become a part of everyday life.
The steering is extremely heavy at parking speeds, and while a variable-ratio steering gear ratio is used to reduce effort, it only changes from 20.5:1 when driving straight to 23.6:1 near full lock, so the difference isn’t really perceptible. For ladies who drive, the optional power steering should be considered a “must.” Lock-to-lock travel is about 4.75 turns of the wheel, taking into account the on-center free play, so the driver becomes quite busy when trying to negotiate tight corners quickly. While the steering is heavy at low speeds, it becomes lighter as the speed increases. The basic handling characteristic is strong understeer, but it is significantly improved by increasing the tire pressure to about 2.0kg/cm², without adversely affecting ride comfort. In recent years, the handling of Toyota cars has been improving significantly, and this Crown Hardtop is no exception. At high speeds, the steering becomes quite accurate, and responsiveness increases with speed. On winding urban highways, once accustomed to it, a driver can thread this 1.4 ton vehicle through traffic with much the same ease as driving a smaller car.
The ride can be summed up as heavy, solid and very comfortable. The suspension is basically soft, with plenty of travel. Small road irregularities are absorbed entirely, and because the sound insulation is very good, noise from the suspension is also well suppressed. However, when large bumps are taken at high speeds, the suspension easily bottoms out, and when driving on poorly surfaced roads at about 80km/h, the body sways quite a bit, to the point that passengers can begin to feel sick. Considering the soft suspension and the relatively large sprung weight, there is little roll in corners. This is understandable, since the car is equipped with a stabilizer bar with a diameter of more than 20mm. The rigidity of the body itself is exceptionally high.
Fuel economy naturally varies greatly depending on driving patterns. In practical terms, the car achieved an almost unbelievable 15.8km/l when driving at 40-50km/h on relatively empty roads in the suburbs, 10.7km/l when driving at the highest permissible speed on the expressway, and 7.8km/l on the return trip to Tokyo from Yatabe on a very congested national highway. The overall average for the 587km test distance was 6.4km/l. Of course, super-grade gasoline is required, and the tank holds 60 liters.
The heater and ventilator system is very comprehensive. The heater, which allows switching between outdoor and recirculated air, becomes a powerful ventilator in the summer. The blower has three speeds, and the “low” setting is so quiet that it is barely audible. The heater controls are illuminated at light and resemble a miniature apartment window. However, one shortcoming of this system is that the ventilation outlets on both sides of the dash share a common duct with the heater, so it’s impossible to create the ideal condition of warming your feet and cooling your face with fresh air.
Heavy rain fell during our test period, giving us a chance to test the effectiveness of the defogger. If we opened the cowl vent and the interior vent louver for the rear window, the rear window remained free of fogging as long as we drove continuously. However, if we got stuck in traffic, it would fog up again. As we later discovered, there is a separate rear window defogger for just such occasions, but the switch for it is hidden under the dash. The two-speed wipers provide a wide swept area, but they also float up off the windshield and become nearly useless above 120km/h.
Perhaps the most attractive feature of this car’s interior is the AM/FM search tuner radio, which has speakers at both the front and rear, and allows the balance to be freely adjusted from front to rear and side to side. To tell the truth, this editor even took an extra lap around the Tokyo Circuit just to listen to the final movement of a concerto that started on the way home.
The model that we tested, the Hardtop SL with 4-speed floor shift, is the most “hard-core” of the hardtop lineup, but the heavy controls felt a little out of place in this type of car. Rather, this car would be best appreciated in the standard (non-SL) “husband’s spec” trim, with a torque converter automatic, power steering, and air conditioning (all optional), with the driver relaxing while listening to the stereo, which must have been the designers’ original intention.
Postscript: Story Photos
