The Crown has evolved into a line of full-size luxury sedans by Toyota. The range was primarily available in Japan and some other Asian countries, originally designed to serve as a taxi. It was in later years sold in the United States during the late 1950s and up until 1971. The Crown is Toyota's oldest sedan still in production. It is outranked only by the Century and the Majesta in social status. The Crown is used by many Japanese companies as the company limosiune. Exports to Europe began in 1964 with the first cars going to Finland. Other European countries which saw imports of the Crown included the Netherlands and Belgium. The United Kingdom was another market until the early 1980s. It was also exported to Canada for a few years—1965–68. In many markets the Crown had become very expensive and was replaced by the Cressida when that model became available for export in the early 1980s.

Australia was another important export market for the Crown—to the extent that it was manufactured there from the mid-1960s until the late 1980s using many local components.

Most models of the car are distinguishable by a front "Crown" badge, but the common Toyota badge is usually used on the rear.

The Crown has existed in some form since after the war and Toyota uses the "Crown" name as inspiration for their primary sedans, the Corolla which is Latin for "small crown", the Camry a phonetic transcription of the Japanese word kanmuri that means crown, and the Corona which is also Latin for crown.

The Crown was introduced in 1955 to meet the demand of public transportation in the form of a taxi, with the same 1.5 L Type R engine used on their previous car, the Toyopet Super. Its coil and double wishbone independent front suspension was a departure from the leaf sprung live axle front suspension used on most previous models but was similar to the independent front suspension used on the 1947 Toyopet SA. The live axle rear suspension was similar to that used on most of the previous models (unlike the trailing arm rear suspension used on the SA). Taxi versions were produced and commercial versions of the vehicle were also available as an estate wagon and a 3 or 6 seater coupe utility.

The Crown was designed to replace the Super but Toyota was not sure if its independent front coil suspension and its suicide type rear doors were too radical for the taxi market to bear. So the Super was updated, renamed the Master and sold alongside the Crown. When sales of the Crown proved worthwhile, the Master was discontinued in November 1956 and production facilities for the Master were transferred to the Crown.

The initial RS model received a cosmetic update in 1958 to become the RS20. In 1961 the 1.5L R engine was replaced with the similar 1.9L (1896cc) 3R engine to become the RS30.

The commercial models (utilities, wagons and vans) were known as the Master Line. The body panels were altered slightly in style as well as function but were otherwise the same as the rest of the Crown range.