I Just Bought A $20,000 Japanese Rolls-Royce - The V12 Toyota Century

The best part of this is you can tell how happy Thomas is for James. True friends show enthusiasm when their friend is happy.

License tag suggestion: "IMPORTED" as a double meaning for James.

Ever since seeing this review of the Toyota Century, I've been obsessed with this car. You guys perfectly showcased the elegance of this car. The luxuriousness of it, while it is still being subtle in many ways. This video made me want a Century of my own. I didn't have a driving license however, but this car combined with this review was the reason to finally get one. And so the journey began... I started taking driving lessons in the summer of 2023. Passed the exam first-try in December. Next step, finding a seller. This car is not sold where I live, and thus had to look in Japan for one. And so, since passing for the license, I have been looking at and bidding on auctions in Japan daily. Last weekend I finally won a bid at one of the Japanese auctions, and a Century is now being shipped to the EU! The Century I bought is very similarly specced as the one in this review. Black exterior. Wool interior. Fender wing mirrors. Shifter on the steering column. Even the granny lace curtains are included. I'm very very excited to have it delivered soon and to use it as a daily. Thanks Throttle House for this review and exposing me to this beautiful car (and making me get a driving license) 🔥

I legit couldn't care less about cars. I don't know why I clicked on it or decided to scroll to the middle of the video. But the guy who bought the car is so proud of it and so happy with it, it's almost infectious. It's nice seeing people have a childlike hapiness for something they got.

James! a stunning car, you can get a plug in replacement for a lexus and it will translate all of the navigation and let you add region appropriate maps (and radio). You'll keep all functionality but be able to read it. My mate did it on his, and it changed the game

Toyota Century’s fail safe is amazing. Even if one bank of the V12 dies, it can still run with the other V bank. A chauffeur-driven car for VIP is not allowed to get stuck.

I actually want one. I like its simplicity and it is definitely very reliable too.

This is so cool. Feels so fitting for James to have such a beautiful and unique car. Truly for a collector/car-enthusiast!

It shouldn't surprise anyone that James has absolutely impeccable taste, but goddamn, this is the grail! I'm finding the next ticket out to Canada!!!

Fun fact: The V12 in this car “1GZ-FE” is the same one which was used by Legendary tuner Kazuhiko Nagata aka Smokey Nagata in his V12 supra but in that it got the “Top Secret” (his tuning shop) treatment and it got fitted with twin HKS GT2540 turbos and two HKS ECUs (because technology wasn’t that advanced at that time and single ECU wasn’t enough to perform that many inputs and outputs) with in house custom made pistons and other engine parts built by “Top Secret” itself specifically for that car and all of this treatment turned that engine from making modest 280 hp to staggering 839HP and 1010NM of torque (it may not sound much now but these were numbers were unprecedented in that era) and he fitted this engine into his Supra and flew to Nardo, Italy at the famous Nardo ring test track to do a top speed run and he managed to 224mph. Thank you for reading all the way down :), like this so more and more people can know about this fact.

Saw one in Dallas over the summer for the first time ever and lost my mind. Such a cool car!

Funny, I felt the same way about my LS430 the first time I drove it. It now has 170K miles on it and is still absolutely silent and the rear window shade still works. It is also an amazing car.

I was a Toyota mechanic for six years from '69 to '75. There is an untold story about the Century that Toyota will probably not admit to, but a little bit of research digs it out. You probably aren't going to believe it, but the Century was an afterthought. Here is the story. Toyota initially entered the American market in the mid-fifties with the Crown sedan in California. Sales were tepid and by the early sixties Toyota was looking for a way to break into the north American market in a bigger way. Their dilemma was how to do so without incurring a huge amount of debt. That's when they began casting around for an American car company to partner with. From Toyota's point of view, partnering with a large American car company where there was already a dealer network in place, instead of purchasing millions of dollars of real estate and building thousands of dealerships, was the best of both worlds. Around the same time that Toyota was looking for a way to break into the American market, the principals of the Studebaker Corporation in Hamilton, Ontario were struggling to keep Studebaker afloat. They'd shut down production in South Bend, Indiana, in California and at all overseas plants, but knew that if they didn't find a solution within two or three years, they would be facing bankruptcy. That's when they hit upon the idea of pairing with one of the Japanese manufacturers who were trying to break into the American market. They flirted with Nissan for a bit but then settled on wooing Toyota and in the '63/'64 timeframe entered into talks with representatives from Toyota. Toyota was interested in a ready-made sales network and Studebaker was interested in the idea of maybe selling a re-badged Toyota under the Studebaker name while keeping the Studebaker plant in Hamilton going. The problem was, Toyota's cars being sold in the US, though they were Toyota's largest model, the Crown, were too small and were so underpowered that the team from Studebaker felt that they'd probably flop. After all, Toyota had been selling the Crown on the American market in limited numbers in California since the mid-fifties and sales had been underwhelming - Studebaker needed a shot in the arm, not an anchor. Talks stalled. Toyota, not wanting to lose the chance at that ready-made network of dealers, decided to try and salvage the deal by producing a car that American buyers would look more favorably upon. They based their new model on the existing Crown model but with modifications. They'd already dumped the stodgy old Crown 4-door body, that had resembled a mid-fifties Dodge, and had debuted a new Crown body style. The new Crown was more squared off and its lines somewhat resembled the Studebaker Lark. To make that model more desirable for American buyers, Toyota decided to widen the Crown model by six inches. This provided more interior room, so the car more comfortably fit the average American body size. Knowing that the 4-cylinder engine powering their Crowns already being sold in America was not powerful enough for most American buyers, and that V8 engines were the default standard for power in America, Toyota decided to power the new model with an entirely new engine, a hemi V8 (Japan's first V8). The new model was christened the Crown Eight. While Toyota went about designing the new engine, tooling up for its production, and setting up a separate production line at a remote facility in order to build a test run of the new model. The mucky-mucks at Studebaker continued casting around for new business partners. At one point, they were talking to representatives from Nissan when the Nissan reps learned they'd previously tried to woo Toyota, their biggest rival in Japan. At that point, the Nissan folks refused to meet with the Stude folks. Back in Japan, Toyota didn't want to have to commit to full scale production of the new model if a partnership with an American firm wasn't successful. If a partnership did work out, they were ready to add a proper production line at the existing Crown plant and begin producing the Crown Eight in large numbers. After about a year of frenetic activity, Toyota managed to debut a test run of the new Crown Eight in Japan and began selling it domestically. As 1966 rolled around, Studebaker's execs found the company hanging on by a thread. The Lark, which by then was the only model they still manufactured, hadn't been selling that well and they'd had to resort to using Chevrolet V8 engines as a way to save cost on production. Worse, they were facing a rebellion - they'd passed on the idea of partnering with a Japanese firm to their dealer network and a lot of dealers had balked and said they'd close their doors before they'd take on Japanese cars. Memories of WWII were still strong in the minds of many in the US and Canada. Despite this, a deal with Toyota was finally inked out and a final meeting was set at a hotel in Toronto to sign the papers. The two top execs at Studebaker arrived at the hotel the night before the meet. While having drinks together that night, one of the two expressed misgivings about the deal before he went up to his room. In the morning that exec said he couldn't go through with it and he left the hotel. The other Studebaker exec was caught between a rock and a hard place. If he went ahead and signed with Toyota they might end up facing a dealer rebellion. If he didn't, and they couldn't find another way to save the company, Studebaker would have to cease operations and thousands of workers at the Hamilton plant would lose their livelihoods. By and by, he made up his mind that Studebaker would have to take its chances and try again to find another way to save the company. He walked out of the hotel less than thirty minutes prior to the time set for the meeting. Shortly thereafter, after over a hundred years of constant vehicle production - horse-drawn wagons, electric vehicles, and then gas-powered cars and trucks - Studebaker closed its doors for the last time. Toyota found itself holding the bag with an entirely new model and engine. The investment in designing and tooling up for production of the Crown Eight's V8 engine had been significant - they weren't willing to throw all that effort away. Toyota had been toying with the idea of vying for the Imperial car fleet. Now that they had a larger, more powerful engine, the time seemed right to produce a new larger luxury sedan with which to compete with Nissan, who'd been providing cars for the royal fleet for decades. They began designing and new model, the Century, to be powered with that new V8 engine, and built a limited run for the upcoming competition. When the next selection process was set for the royal fleet, the Toyota Century, with its very smooth and quiet little hemi, won handily. Since 1967, the Century has remained the choice of the royal fleet. That same year, after less than 4,000 total units had been produced, the Crown Eight ceased production. Today, Crown Eights are extremely rare; and, if one finds one for sale, it will cost a pretty penny. Among car folks, the story of how Packard got royally screwed when it bought Studebaker, and how trying to keep Studebaker afloat eventually resulted in Packard's demise, is legend. However, not much has ever been said about Toyota's near miss with Studebaker in the sixties. One has to wonder - if Toyota had been successful at buying Studebaker, would Toyota have eventually experienced the same fate as Packard, or would Toyota have been able to pull Studebaker out of the hole it had dug itself, and would Studebaker have survived? Toyota probably learned a lesson that day about how to deal with north Americans. Instead of trying to deal with one single manufacturer, they went about breaking into the north American market another way - they sought out individual dealers from all other marques who were interested in taking on, as a sideline, an additional, smaller and less expensive brand. This enabled Toyota to quietly feel out the American market, develop additional models targeted at this market, and grow to the point where, by 1975 Toyota had overtaken VW for the largest number of imports sold per year in the US. The rest is history.

The Toyota Century is a dream car of mine. I'm so jealous. (Also if you could somehow squeeze Supra XXL onto the numberplate that would be hilarious)

That wool is just something else...actually not much of a fan of leather seats myself, fine for steering wheel, gear stick etc. though. You really need someone to be able to help you maintain this car on a regular basis though, trying to keep it clean and keep it in condition that is fitting for such a vehicle.

I already knew basically everything this video told me concerning this vehicle, yet I was entertained every step of the way, I enjoy your program greatly.

This V12 engine uses two sets of ECU to individually control the 6 in-line cylinders on each side, so that when there is a problem with one side, the other side can still drive the vehicle. The quality is very reliable.

License Plate - “IM JAMES” Absolutely fantastic content as usual! Having just bought a new WRX, I now feel like I’ve made a mistake and should have went with a luxury Toyota from the early 2000s, haha.

Last December i was in Tokyo for four days because i was looking at several AE86s. A friend of mine is Japanese and the guy he bought his 86 from knew a guy who had 5 sitting in a lot. I was picked up and driven to the airport and the other way around i a Century. I always kinda knew that it existed, but fell completely in love over it while i was driven through Tokyo in it. At the end of the trip, i had the same driver with the same car, the guy was delighted i loved his car. When i was in the plane home, i started looking for a century right away. It had to be light blue tho, the car i was driven in was this colour, and i think it suits the car very well. And it is something different than the black, i saw a black one at the hotel as well, its a beautiful colour, but i prefer the light blue.We actually had a light blue for sale here in Germany around that time, but when i inquired for the car it was already sold. So i asked my friend in Japan to look for one and he found mine. 1997 model year, light blue with dark blue wool seats, little bit less than 120.000km on it, one owner. He wanted to stay anonymous, but i was told that he was an older gentleman, who was only selling because he has another one and he got a new third gen Century. The cars are currently on there way to the Netherlands, cant wait to pick them up. I was a little bit worried about servicing my future Century, even got laughed at for asking ath the Toyota dealership, where my parents bought they're Mirais. But i found a smaller dealer who knows hot to service the car, they have another customer with a Century as well.

ive seen many car videos on youtube, but this is hands down the best one... i think your genuine joy and amazement made it