American car buyers, for the most part, are not fans of wagons. The long roof body style has almost disappeared from the U.S. car market with only a few models remaining. There is the ever-popular Subaru Outback, and some more expensive options from Audi, Mercedes, and Volvo. The all-new Crown Signia sure seems like a wagon, even though Toyota doesn’t want to use the term in its marketing language.
The Crown Signia is virtually identical to the Crown sedan/fastback but with some added cargo space making it a bit more practical, but arguably less stylish. This model is supposed to bridge the gap between the compact RAV4 Hybrid and mid-size Highlander Hybrid and will serve as a replacement for the Venza which is scheduled to be discontinued for the 2024 model year.
The Signia is a renamed version of the Crown Estate that Toyota sells in other markets, and “Estate” is basically the fancy word for wagon elsewhere. Using the “Estate” nomenclature in America can seem a bit pretentious so, Toyota went with “Signia” which doesn’t have any real meaning other than it sounds fancy.
Semantics aside, there are some very clear rules, that determine whether or not a car is a wagon. The first of which is that there needs to be a side window that gives visual access to the cargo area. The second is that the roofline must cover at least 50 percent of the cargo area.
The Crown Signia clearly has both.
And when viewed from the side with other wagons currently sold in the US market, the Signia car is definitely a longroof.
Toyota could claim that it sells the only hybrid wagon in America, but instead, it would rather lump the Crown Signia in a sea of crossovers. This is a shame because only car dorks are familiar with the Crown nameplate anyway, and those same weirdos are likely to be the ones who buy wagons in the first place. I’m not asking Toyota for something unrealistic like a GR Crown Signia, though that would be pretty awesome, but the automaker should just call their car what it is–a wagon.