It Looks Like The Toyota Century GRMN SUV Is Happening

Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda has strongly hinted that this enormous genre-busting luxury performance SUV is heading for production

Mike Bartholomew

23 Aug 2024

Toyota Century GRMN SUV prototype - front

The Toyota Century used to be a pretty simple prospect: an enormous luxury saloon, just for the Japanese market, it was essentially a JDM Bentley full of wool. Now, though, Toyota is aiming to make Century a sort of Lexus-plus luxury sub-brand for some Asian markets, something that was spurred on by the arrival of an SUV version last year.

Alongside the production SUV’s reveal, Toyota rolled out a version jazzed up with Gazoo Racing bits and wearing GRMN badges. So far, that badge – which stands for ‘Gazoo Racing tuned by the Meister of the Nürburgring’ has been applied to even harder versions of existing GR performance cars (as well as the oft-forgotten supercharged Yaris GRMN from a few years back).

We can’t say for sure if this vast, 2.5-tonne box has in fact been tuned by the Meister of the Nürburgring, but it nevertheless looks as if the Century GRMN SUV is happening.

Everyone’s favourite automotive chairman, Akio Toyoda, confirmed the news at a meeting with a group of Century owners in China. One of the owners asked if the GRMN version was heading for production. “We are, right?” Responded Toyoda, something quickly confirmed by engineer Yoshikazu Tanaka. “But you’ll have to wait a bit,” continued Toyoda.

Currently, Toyoda owns the sole GRMN SUV prototype. It sits lower on larger wheels, has a bodykit, and also features MPV-style sliding rear doors that are set to become an option on the production Century SUV.

Whether the eventual production version will receive any performance upgrades, or even an entirely new powertrain, isn’t clear. Currently, the Century SUV is only available with a plug-in hybrid system, consisting of a 3.5-litre V6 and a pair of electric motors for a total of 406bhp.

Toyota Century GRMN SUV prototype - side

The Century saloon, meanwhile, gets a 5.0-litre V8 hybrid powertrain with 425bhp. One of the owners in the meeting asks if the GRMN SUV will get this setup, but doesn’t get a definitive answer.

Either way, like the rest of the Century range, the GRMN SUV will almost certainly remain an Asia-only model, with Japan and China likely its biggest markets. Want to see it come over here?

The first full sentence spoken by an infant Mike was a review of the ride quality of a Volvo 850. It was “Daddy’s car goes bumpy-bump on a bumpy road,” so would probably need proofreading a bit, but it was a start.