While German brands like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi largely dominate the premium sedan market, over in Japan there is a home-grown car on the market that’s just as luxurious while still being uniquely Japanese dubbed the Toyota Century. Doug DeMuro recently reviewed a second-generation model.
Toyota built the second-generation Century in Japan between April 1997 and January 2017 and it is loaded with an array of interesting features one wouldn’t ordinarily expect to find in a Toyota.
These unique features start in the second row where Toyota outfitted the Century with cloth seats as opposed to leather. Then there’s the console between the two front seats which rear passengers can open up to reveal a small TV complete with a dedicated remote control. However, the presence of a TV is far from the only weird thing going on in the Century’s cabin.
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Nowadays it is quite common for luxury sedans like this to have the option to move the front passenger seat forward so a rear passenger can recline their seat and stretch out their legs. Rather than doing what most of its rivals have done, Toyota thought up a very Japanese solution that allows a rear seat passenger to pull a handle on the back of the front passenger seat, lowering a section of the front seat to double as a leg rest, allowing you to lie back with your feet going right through the front seat.
Then there’s the powertrain. The second-generation Toyota Century features a 5.0-liter naturally-aspirated V12 engine, the only powertrain of its sort ever developed by the car manufacturer. In early models, this engine was mated to a four-speed automatic transmission while it is paired with a six-speed auto in later models.