Today’s luxury cars are good at absolutely everything.
The best of them are lovely examples of the design arts — beautiful inside and out. They out-accelerate the muscle cars of a generation ago and corner like little sports coupes. They have extreme creature comforts — buttery-soft leather, heated seats and steering wheels, and huge panoramic glass roofs to let passengers kick back and take in the sky.
Luxury SUVs have sophisticated all-wheel drive (AWD) systems that keep you secure in foul weather and on the roughest roads while feeling easy and smooth on ribbons of highway.
They’re good at everything. And they’re priced like it.
What if you wanted just slightly less? What if, say, you wanted a luxury car’s cabin but were satisfied with casual performance? What if you were willing to pay a bit more for some luxury trappings but not take on a luxury car payment to get technologies you rarely use?
For 2025, Toyota has an answer for you. Meet the 2025 Toyota Crown Signia – a midsize hybrid SUV with a bit of style and many of the creature comforts of a luxury car but the performance credentials of a mainstream commuter. Call it Lexus light.
It’s one of two Crown cars you might have seen recently. Toyota also introduced a high-riding Crown sedan in 2023.
A week in the Crown Signia showed me the virtues of being selective about what you want.
My tester was a Cown Signia Limited in a dusty medium blue Toyota calls Storm Cloud with an interior of Saddle Tan Leather. It retailed for $49,385, including the mandatory $1,395 destination fee.
That squeezes it in just under the price of the cheapest Lexus RX midsize SUV, which explains this car’s reason for being.
Styled for Sleek, Not Rugged
If the Crown Signia stands out in the midsize SUV field, it’s because it has no off-roading pretensions. Its styling leans toward sleek, with slit-thin headlights that lend it an almost snake-like look.
The Storm Cloud shade of my tester got positive comments from friends, but Toyota also cribbed from Lexus in offering a copper-like hue called Bronze Age that might be the car’s best look.
A Near-Luxury Cabin
The Crown Signia’s best angle is the one from the driver’s seat. Its cabin feels a level above what most mainstream cars provide.
Even the base XLE model gets heated and ventilated power front seats with memory settings for the driver, as well as heated outboard rear seats. Upholstery throughout is leather, and it’s everywhere. The passenger is cocooned from the driver by a curved leather footwell panel that makes the front passenger’s position feel a bit like a first-class airline seat.
The driver has a heated leather steering wheel and faces a big 12.3-inch digital instrument screen, with a similar central touchscreen canted slightly toward the driver. It all feels more sculpted and intentional than many mainstream SUV cabins. It looks great in Saddle Tan.
Many parts are taken directly from the Lexus bin—the screen housings, volume control, and drive selector are Lexus parts, not Toyota parts.
It lacks a few of the highest-end luxuries you might get from a car with a sculpted L badge on the front instead. The sound system, for instance, uses fairly good JBL Premium speakers instead of the exceptional Mark Levinson speakers in a Lexus product. However, the cabin offers near-Lexus luxury at a lower price. Hence, the “Lexus” in “Lexus light.”
A Camry-Like Driving Experience
The luxury comparison falls apart when you stomp on the accelerator.
The Crown Signia is carried forward by a nicely balanced 2.5-liter 4-cylinder engine mated to three electric motors for hybrid power. It makes 243 horsepower and sends power to all four wheels through an AWD system. A continuously variable automatic transmission (CVT) passes it on.
It’s roughly equivalent to what you find in a 2025 Toyota Camry and less than you’d get in a Highlander. Enough for an easy commute and a stable highway drive. But that little Lexus shifter fools you. Shift it into drive, and you won’t find anything like luxury SUV power.
Steering is light and unremarkable. I didn’t challenge the AWD system with anything more than a dirt road, but found it well-balanced and easy.
Everything about the Crown Signia’s performance is, well, easy. It never felt out of place in a half-day road trip starting on a well-maintained highway and ending on bumpy dirt roads. But it never felt remarkable, either.
This car won’t excite you with its acceleration or cornering poise. That’s the “light” part.
An SUV With Priorities
For some shoppers, that description probably sounds unappealing. For others, it’s precisely what they need.
If you want much of the luxury car but not all of it—want the luxurious cabin but see no need for speed you’ll never use—the Crown Signia is for you.
Not every car has to be great at everything. That’s how we get overpriced cars. The 2025 Toyota Crown Signia is genuinely stylish, comfortable, tech-packed, and perfectly at home as a family car with nothing to prove.
