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2025 GMC Acadia ReviewTop 10 JDM Toyotas
Some of the coolest and most awesome Toyota’s are ones you’ve never seen on American streets. These are the top 10 JDM Toyotas.
The Good, the Weird, and the Legendary
Japanese Domestic Market or JDM cars have a certain mystique in US car culture. Many of these Japan-only vehicles, like the R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R and the Honda NSX-R, are the stuff of automotive legend, spoken of with awe, wonder, and reverence. Among those, not a few are Toyotas like the Mk IV Supra, the Celica T-230, and the Hummer-like Mega Cruiser. Of course, Toyota has been making more than just sports cars for their home market. JDM Toyotas range from passenger vans like the Alphard to luxury limos like the Century. Below we explore some of the coolest and most compelling JDM Toyotas ever built.
Toyota Alphard
The Toyota Alphard is not Japan’s version of the Sienna. Rather, the Alphard is Toyota’s luxury minivan, and it sits atop a wide range of lesser, though still deserving, vans from the Estima and HiAce to the Vellfire (the edgy version of the Alphard marketed to “the youths”). You see, high-end vans are big in Japan, like Tom Waits, and the Alphard is a go-to model with a glass-smooth ride and sumptuous interior. The top trim Royal Lounge will run you upwards of $140,000 US. For the very pinnacle of Toyota Vanlife Luxury, check out Lexus’ version of the Alphard, the LM with its “Emperor Suite” configuration complete with two first-class level seats in back and a huge 48-inch entertainment screen.
Toyota Chaser
Once upon a time in Japan, there was a rear-wheel drive sedan named the Toyota Chaser. From 1977 through 2001 and across six generations, the Chaser was a step below the luxury-level (and expensive) Toyota Crown. The Chaser made an excellent and more affordable alternative that still provided a degree of sporty driving and high-end appointments. The fourth, fifth, and sixth generation Chasers featured a collection of 1JZ straight-six engines to choose from, including the twin-turbocharged 1JZ-GTE.
Toyota Sprinter Trueno AE86
The Toyota Trueno AE86 is on a short and very prestigious list of the most iconic JDM Toyotas of all time. Its only competition for that title is the Mk IV Supra, which we’ll get to in a bit. The AE86 was a 2+2 sport coupe built by Toyota from 1983 through 1987. Despite the short production run, the Sprinter Trueno and related Corolla Levin became early icons of drift culture in Japan and the wider world. Much of that is owed to the manga and anime series Initial D, wherein the main character Takumi Fujiwara makes high-speed deliveries of tofu while drifting like a madman in his AE86 Trueno GT-APEX on the curving highway that snakes along the slopes of Mt. Akina (aka Mt. Haruna in real life). The popularity of anime has ensured the AE86 cult status among JDM fans.
Toyota Crown
The new Toyota Crown sitting at your local dealership is a hybrid lifted sedan/crossover, and a major departure from the long and storied history of the Toyota luxury sedan we’ve never gotten in the US. The Toyota Crown’s history goes all the way back to 1955 with the Toyopet Crown. Since then, the Crown has seen a staggering sixteen generations including its latest which finally comes back to US shores, absent here since the early 1970s. In addition to the crossover version of the Crown we get in the States, the new sixteenth generation will also include sport, estate, and sedan body styles available in Japan.
Toyota HiAce
If the Alphard is the omega-level pinnacle of the Toyota van, the alpha Toyota van is the HiAce a utilitarian van/pickup. Dating back to 1967, the HiAce has long been Toyota’s version of the VW microbus and used as the basis for numerous vehicles from taxis and panel vans to pickups and ambulances. It continues to be a popular people mover the world over today, serving the same niche as the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter and Ford Transit.
Toyota Copen
The Toyota Copen is an endearing two-seat roadster that first debuted in 2002. The Copen is one of many rebadged Daihatsu kei cars available in Japan. Daihatsu being a subsidiary of Toyota and the kei car segment being unique to Japan, wherein the size and engine displacement is limited in order to qualify for tax incentives. The first-generation Copen was powered by a 659-cc turbocharged I-4 in Japan, while European market versions got a larger 1.3L engine. Like many kei cars, the Copen borrowed its styling from larger, better-known cars, in its case the Audi TT and the VW Beetle. A second generation vastly improved styling with a more original look best expressed in the Copen GR (Gazoo Racing) Sport.
Toyota Supra Mk IV
The Toyota Supra Mk IV is JDM royalty made famous as one of the real-life Club Mid Night cars and as Brain’s 10-second car in the original The Fast & The Furious. The Supra began in Japan as the Celica XX back in 1978 and exported the following year as the Supra. The second-generation offered wonderfully boxy ‘80s styling, its best-looking guise for my money. The third generation got double wishbone suspension all around and the first of its 3.0L straight-six JZ engines, a twin-turbo 1JZ-GTE. The fourth generation is where the Supra evolved into a tuning monster and automotive icon. That status is owed to the car’s twin-turbocharged 2JZ-GTE 3.0L. This engine is a classic example of Toyota’s penchant for overengineering. Making 276 horsepower in Japan, the export market cars were treated to just over 320 horsepower, these figures only scratched the surface of the 2JZ’s potential. This engine could happily take much more boost than what came from the factory, and in the hands of tuners can often be pushed to more than 1,000 horsepower. Between the movie tie-in, street cred, and tunability, it’s little wonder the Mk IV Supra often sells for upwards of $100,000.
Toyota Hilux
Speaking of Toyota’s tendency to overengineer, the Toyota Hilux’s reputation for ruggedness and durability is second to none. The Hilux started out in Japan in 1968 as a light rear-wheel drive truck, and first exported to the US in 1972 (with much of its assembly completed in California). The Hilux name was phased out in North America by the middle 1970s, but elsewhere, including back in Japan, the Hilux name stuck, building a resume of toughness worldwide that had grown more impressive over the succeeding decades. So legendary is the Hilux’s toughness, Top Gear subjected one example to an unbelievable amount of abuse, starting with leaving it in the ocean overnight, dropping a caravan on it, and finally setting it atop a building which was then demolished. Despite all this, the Hilux still started. As much as American Toyota fans love their Tacos, it’s hard not to look over to the Japanese Domestic Market and their herculean Hiluxes with no small amount of envy.
Toyota Land Cruiser 70 Series
The Hilux, however, does not hold a Toyota toughness monopoly, because that reputation for durability is equally shared with the Land Cruiser. The Land Cruiser began as Toyota’s version of the WWII Jeep back in the early 1950s and has evolved over ten-plus generations. That lineage can be a little difficult to trace as the Land Cruiser line has seen three distinct families/varieties heavy-duty, light-duty, and station wagon, so where you draw the line on generations often depends on where you are in the world. While the US did get the jeep-like FJ40 and wagon version like the FJ55, J60, and J80, we never got the J70 which debuted in 1984 and continues in production today. The J70 Land Cruiser eschewed the semi-luxury trappings of the wagon version like the J100, J200, and today’s J300. That focus on off-road ruggedness has made the J70 Land Cruiser another in a long line of desirable JDM Toyota’s. The good news, given their longevity, many J70s now qualify for the importation under the US’s 25-year rule.
Toyota Century
No list of JDM Toyota’s would be complete without the brand’s halo car, the Century. The Toyota Century has served as the peak of the brand’s ambitions going back to 1967. This lux’ed out limo has been the vehicle of choice for Japanese heads of state, businessmen, and celebrities alike. The car’s conservative, all-black design so defined success in Japan that it took Toyota thirty years before finally giving it a second-generation redux (with a 1982 redesign thrown in between). The Century has consistently featured the absolute best in Toyota’s engineering and luxury appointments from glass smooth V8s and V12s to automatic climate control back in 1971! Though the Century is Toyota’s finest product, above even the Lexus lineup, it has always been marketed modestly, as a 2013 marketing pamphlet noted, “the Century is acquired through persistent work, the kind that is done in a plain but formal suit.”
Today, the conservatively minded Century has finally caught up to the modern day as the nameplate is set to spawn a new plug-in hybrid SUV variant with a pair of opulent rear seats and the choice of regular or sliding rear doors. Of course, the new Toyota Century, like those that have gone before, will be a Japanese market exclusive.
