Toyota Sedan Range

Even though this model Camry has an official combined fuel consumption figure of 7.9 litres per 100km, the exact number of kilometres you get from each tank of fuel will depend hugely on how and where you drive the car. If your driving is all around the city and suburbs, you might average, say, nine litres per 100km. If it’s all freeway work, then that figure may tumble to as low as seven litres per 100km. Drive the car really gently and you might even get that figure to drop into the sixes.

In any case, the (higher) city figure means the Camry’s 70-litre fuel tank should take you around 750km before you need to fill up. On the highway, meantime, the same 70 litres should carry you almost 1000km before you need to start looking for a petrol station. In reality, of course, the only direction with such projections is down, and every cold start, traffic jam and headwind will take kilometres off those figures.

While the sedan sold alongside the hatchback version of the Corolla in Australia, the hatchback easily outsold the sedan. And that’s pretty much the reason you still see a lot of hatchbacks getting around, but sedans are thin on the ground. They just didn’t sell in the same numbers back in the day. Fundamentally, buyers were much more likely to go for the extra practicality of the hatchback layout.

Of course, that’s in Australia. In some other markets (China, for example) the sedan version of a particular make and model is often more popular than the hatchback variant. It’s a cultural thing, in essence.

The Crown is a popular grey (private) import and there are plenty of them getting around in Australia these days. Mechanically, they share a lot of components with other Toyotas and some Lexus models, including the hybrid variants. Technically speaking, because the latter-day Crown was never officially imported here (earlier versions were) a Toyota dealership may or may not wish to take on the maintenance. But you should have no trouble finding a workshop that knows its way around these cars and perhaps even specialises in them.

Mechanical parts should not be too hard to get hold of, but body parts and trim pieces might be another matter as they will be Crown-specific and not shared across other models. As with any car, the price you’ll pay will depend on availability and whether you want brand-new or are prepared to accept second-hand parts.