We debate whether to call the Crown Signia a sport utility vehicle (SUV), a crossover, or a wagon. What’s your take?
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Toyota’s gorgeous new 2025 Crown Signia debuted today. The Crown Signia will replace the 2024 Venza in the Toyota lineup when it goes on sale in the coming couple of months. While we love the look of the Crown Signia, we are not sure what to call it.
Toyota’s press release today was comprehensive and included pricing (it Starts at $44,985 and ends at $51,675), some basic specs, and a whole lot of verbiage. In the press release, Toyota’s team says, “The first-ever 2025 Toyota Crown Signia brings striking style and fashionable function to Toyota’s SUV lineup.” So, Toyotoa looks at what it has created and sees an SUV. In the press release, the Crown Signia is called an SUV five times. We are not so sure.
U stands for Utility. The Crown Signia certainly can make a claim for being a vehicle with utility. The vehicle has a 2,700-pound towing rating. That’s above average for its class. The Crown Signia also has a loooong 6.5-foot cargo space length. It will be ideal for sleeping in on overnight camping trips. With the seats folded, the Crown Signia will offer a roomy 68 cubic feet of volume. That’s midway between the other two wagon-crossover-SUVs in its segment, the Mazda CX-5 (59.3 cu ft) and the Subaru Outback (75.6 cu ft).
On the other hand, the Crown Signia seems to have lost the spare that is found in nearly every modern Toyota such as the outgoing Venza, RAV4, Highlander, new 2025 Camry, and many other models. It is weird to us that the Camry has a spare, but the Crown Signia doesn’t. Hmm.
2025 Toyota Crown Signia - It’s Definitely a Crossover
In its press release, Toyota refers to the Crown Signia as a “crossover” one time, and then in another paragraph, says it offers what drivers love about “crossover Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs)”. Interesting. So, Toyota seems to think (as we do) that there are some SUVs that are better described as “crossover SUVs.” We can’t argue this point. We feel the CX-50 and Outback are also crossover SUVs (or maybe wagons). A crossover is a vehicle that melds an SUV with a car, so from our standpoint, being a crossover does not disqualify a vehicle from also being a wagon.
2025 Toyota Crown Signia - Our Eyes See a Wagon - Plus Proof!
The side profile of the Crown Signia says “wagon” to our well-trained eyes. One qualification for being made a member of any automotive media group is that you must swear to create at least one story about European wagons with stick shifts once per month (I’m way behind). It’s hard to argue the Crown Signia is not a wagon.
Then there is the proof. The cargo length is a whopping 6.5-feet long. We have it on good authority that the Volvo V60 wagon’s cargo length is seven inches shorter.
Tell Us What You See
Please tell us in the comments below what you see when you view images of the 2025 Toyota Crown Signia: SUV, crossover, or wagon.
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John Goreham is an experienced New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on Linkedin and follow his work at our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John's by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ Grammarly grammar and punctuation software when proofreading.
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