First the Yaris, then the Corolla, now even the Toyota Century has an SUV

As a sign of the times, Toyota has transformed its Century luxury sedan into an SUV, following the path laid by other ultra-luxurious, high-riding models like the Rolls-Royce Cullinan, Bentley Bentayga and Aston Martin DBX.

Billed as "a new chauffeur-driven vehicle to meet the demands of a new age", the Century SUV will be sold alongside the Century sedan in overseas markets, but is sadly not on the radar for an introduction in Australia.

However, the Century SUV doesn't share as much in common with the sedan as you might think, it's sort of a Frankenstein's monster of the Toyota and Lexus line-up.

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For starters, the Toyota's flagship SUV is built on the TNGA-K platform that is shared with the Camry, Kluger and RAV4, rather than the sedan's older N architecture.

As a result, the SUV is actually shorter than the sedan (5205mm vs 5335mm), with a smaller wheelbase (2950mm vs 3090mm), but is wider (1990mm vs 1930mm) and obviously much taller (1805mm vs 1505mm).

The Century SUV doesn’t share as much in common with the sedan as you might think.

And while the sedan is powered by a hybrid 5.0-litre petrol V8 engine (outputting 317kW), the SUV makes do with a 3.5-litre petrol V6 plug-in hybrid powertrain, developing a combined 303kW – the same set-up found in the US-market Lexus TX 550h+.

As a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), the Century SUV can travel up to 69km on a full charge before the petrol engine kicks in.

The Century SUV will be sold alongside the Century sedan in overseas markets, but is sadly not on the radar for an introduction in Australia.

Still, as the pinnacle of Toyota opulence, the Century SUV sports seating for four to maximise rear-seat passenger comfort.

Speaking of, those rear seats have reclining functionality, while the rear doors also open to 75-degrees for easier ingress/egress.

As the pinnacle of Toyota opulence, the Century SUV sports seating for four to maximise rear-seat passenger comfort.

Other features include automatically retracting side steps, digital instrument cluster, a large multimedia screen, swathes of leather and soft-touch materials, and a 'Rear Comfort mode' that "assists braking control to supress jolts when the vehicle comes to a halt".

To further enhance passenger comfort, the Century SUV features noise-reducing laminated glass between the cabin and cargo area.

As a sign of the times, Toyota has transformed its Century luxury sedan into an SUV.

Pricing for the Century SUV starts at ¥25,000,000 or around AU$265,600, with Toyota projecting just 30 sales a month in its home market of Japan.