Carmaker shows off new version of vehicle traditionally used by Japanese royals and CEOs
3 min
TOKYO—Toyota thinks the world outside of Japan may finally be ready to embrace its six-figure super luxury flagship car.
Toyota’s Century—often described as the Rolls-Royce of Japanese cars—is a frequent choice of corporate chieftains and government leaders in Japan, including the emperor.
Since it made its debut in 1967, the Century has been sold almost exclusively in Japan and the model has changed little from its original boxy sedan shape and classic styling.
Toyota on Wednesday showed off a new, larger, plug-in hybrid version of the model that “from the start had its eye on the world,” Executive Vice President Hiroki Nakajima said, speaking at the unveiling event in Tokyo.
The new Century model will be introduced this year in Japan at a suggested retail price equivalent to around $170,000 and will be offered to customers in all regions of the world, Nakajima said. Toyota said select dealers in Japan would sell the model but didn’t describe sales procedures in other countries such as the U.S.
With its new Century, Toyota is targeting two segments—larger and luxury vehicles—that have continued to grow despite stagnation elsewhere in the car market. Until now, Toyota has primarily served the luxury market through its Lexus brand.
In 2022, global sport-utility vehicle sales grew 3% from the year earlier despite a slight decline in overall car shipments. That was due in part to strong demand for the vehicles in the U.S., India and Europe. Demand for luxury cars has also continued to rise through recent economic uncertainties.
One thing that won’t change is Toyota’s practice of having specially trained workers hand-make and customise the Century models in Japan. For now, Toyota said it wouldn’t produce more than 30 of the new Century models a month in addition to the existing sedan type it also continues to manufacture.
That means the new Century will likely have a bigger impact on Toyota’s brand image than its bottom line. Nakajima said the Century is a way to show off Toyota’s craftsmanship. He said details of overseas rollout plans would be determined based on initial reactions from customers.
Through the decades, Toyota’s Century has gained a following for being a decidedly Japanese take on a superluxury car. While little-known to most Toyota buyers in the U.S., it has attracted a following from some car enthusiasts such as comedian Jay Leno, who featured the model on a 2018 episode of his car-review series.
The vehicle’s grille features a badge inspired by the golden phoenix that adorns the Temple of the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto. The exit from the rear passenger cabin is lowered so that a person wearing a ceremonial kimono can easily get in and out.
It targets the Japanese upper crust who want to broadcast success, but not in a flashy way. The styling is boxy and understated, typically black with chrome accents.
When introducing the most recent iteration of the Century in 2018, Toyota said it had no plans to sell the vehicle outside of Japan because it didn’t think the car would appeal to foreigners.
The new models presented on stage Wednesday were a departure from the Century’s original styling—similar in shape to an SUV and showing a range of silver and gray shades.
Still, many of the Century’s interior features designed for chauffeured passengers remain. Those include rear seats that fully recline.
Chief Branding Officer Simon Humphries said the new Century was designed to maintain “the highest of Japanese sensibilities,” while also keeping in mind that customers are changing. The roomier new Century is designed for passengers who want to join online meetings from the back seat of their cars and drive without producing emissions, Toyota said.
“It’s a Century for the next century,” Humphries said.
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Report by the San Francisco Fed shows small increase in premiums for properties further away from the sites of recent fires
3 min
Wildfires in California have grown more frequent and more catastrophic in recent years, and that’s beginning to reflect in home values, according to a report by the San Francisco Fed released Monday.
The effect on home values has grown over time, and does not appear to be offset by access to insurance. However, “being farther from past fires is associated with a boost in home value of about 2% for homes of average value,” the report said.
In the decade between 2010 and 2020, wildfires lashed 715,000 acres per year on average in California, 81% more than the 1990s. At the same time, the fires destroyed more than 10 times as many structures, with over 4,000 per year damaged by fire in the 2010s, compared with 355 in the 1990s, according to data from the United States Department of Agriculture cited by the report.
That was due in part to a number of particularly large and destructive fires in 2017 and 2018, such as the Camp and Tubbs fires, as well the number of homes built in areas vulnerable to wildfires, per the USDA account.
The Camp fire in 2018 was the most damaging in California by a wide margin, destroying over 18,000 structures, though it wasn’t even in the top 20 of the state’s largest fires by acreage. The Mendocino Complex fire earlier that same year was the largest ever at the time, in terms of area, but has since been eclipsed by even larger fires in 2020 and 2021.
As the threat of wildfires becomes more prevalent, the downward effect on home values has increased. The study compared how wildfires impacted home values before and after 2017, and found that in the latter period studied—from 2018 and 2021—homes farther from a recent wildfire earned a premium of roughly $15,000 to $20,000 over similar homes, about $10,000 more than prior to 2017.
The effect was especially pronounced in the mountainous areas around Los Angeles and the Sierra Nevada mountains, since they were closer to where wildfires burned, per the report.
The study also checked whether insurance was enough to offset the hit to values, but found its effect negligible. That was true for both public and private insurance options, even though private options provide broader coverage than the state’s FAIR Plan, which acts as an insurer of last resort and provides coverage for the structure only, not its contents or other types of damages covered by typical homeowners insurance.
“While having insurance can help mitigate some of the costs associated with fire episodes, our results suggest that insurance does little to improve the adverse effects on property values,” the report said.
While wildfires affect homes across the spectrum of values, many luxury homes in California tend to be located in areas particularly vulnerable to the threat of fire.
“From my experience, the high-end homes tend to be up in the hills,” said Ari Weintrub, a real estate agent with Sotheby’s in Los Angeles. “It’s up and removed from down below.”
That puts them in exposed, vegetated areas where brush or forest fires are a hazard, he said.
While the effect of wildfire risk on home values is minimal for now, it could grow over time, the report warns. “This pattern may become stronger in years to come if residential construction continues to expand into areas with higher fire risk and if trends in wildfire severity continue.”
