Toyota Mark II and Mark X – Toyota’s Triplet Saloon Cars

Toyota’s RWD saloon cars is a rather amusing cars, it is one of the things that made Toyota very interesting back in the day with the likes of Crowns and the Altezza (Lexus IS). The one I most looked at is the car with 3 different lifestyle on the same body, that is the Mark II. The Toyota Mark II is a Mid-Size saloon car and it is one of the few that featured RWD layout throughout its generations, it was invented back in the 60s as the Corona Mark II and it is there to fill in the gap and widen their market of saloon cars in between the smaller Corona and the larger Crown at that time. By the time it went on sale, the Mark II was an instant success due to its great reliability performance, cheep to run and sharing most features from their Crown with smaller purchase price. With that, the Mark II then is quite popular worldwide. Since the X30 generation, Toyota decided to disperse the Mark II into 3 names with different categories; there is the standard Mark II, than the sportier variant named the Toyota Chaser and the Luxurious version called the Toyota Cresta, both appeared during the late 70s and what has become the “Triplet” Toyota Saloon cars. The Toyota Cresta is the high-end luxury edition of the Mark II base since it had a lot of posh image, it has leisure touches such as wood trim and other comfort options some exclusively for the Cresta. Meanwhile, the Toyota Chaser is the performance-focused spec of the Mark II and it includes much more sporty image and performance options.

Each name of the Mark II chassis featured a couple of trim levels, the Standard “GL”, the rather premium “Grande” and the sporty “Tourer” from the X90 generation into the X100 generation. The Tourer is probably the most looked after, especially the Tourer V trim which was featured improved reinforced body, sport suspension, enhanced electronics such as ABS, Traction Control, LSD and the infamous 1JZ-GTE engine. The Tourer V trim of the Mark II and the Cresta is a popular choice for enthusiasts due to its enhanced performance, but it was the Chaser Tourer V that collected the most attention as it is the most famous model of the Mark II lineup and it is considered as one of the best Japanese performance cars, it is one of the most favorite one by drifters, tuners and the X100 generation was commonly used in racing events such as the Japanese Touring Car Championship and in the Drifting scenes, the Tourer V variant in general on all 3 Mark II editions were the ones that were very looked after by enthusiasts. Most X90s and X100s Chasers these days were tuned for drifting and other race events and the TRD Chaser is one of the most popular tuned variant of this car, to this day the Chaser still remained highly appreciated by most people. The diminishing sales of the Cresta and the Chaser unfortunately costing their possibility for a further generation and the 2 names were dropped for the 9th generation.

The X110 came along in 2000 as only the Mark II and it is more modern and civilized compared to its predecessors, it featured a couple of technologies you’ll find on modern Toyotas of the 2000s, yet despite the more civilized image, the RWD layout still remains for the 9th generation. Apart from the fact that the Cresta and the Chaser name were no longer available, the “Tourer” trim name was also died along with it. Though the package that was on the Tourer trim has moved to the “Grande” name for the X110 generation, this would ended up with a significant amount of trim levels; 2 models considered as the performance variant and the other 7 being the luxury variant all with the Grande name. One of the sportier trims is the 2.5 Grande iR-V, and this is the one with the same turbocharged 1JZ-GTE engine from the popular X100 Chaser, most of the package featured on this spec was basically the legacy of the Tourer V variant, and it is my personal favorite model of the Mark II. The design of the 9th generation is much more modernized and it looked very understated compared to its predecessors. Soon after, the estate version of the X110 was introduced called the Blit, and it is considered as a successor Mark II Qualis (basically an estate version of the XV20 Camry). The engine options for the Blit remained the same to the saloon X110 and the turbocharged 1JZ-GTE is also available for it, in fact the Mark II Blit is one of 2 last Toyota models featuring a JZ engine along with the S170 Crown Athlete, both of which ended production in 2007.

The saloon X110 ended production in 2004 with the Blit followed suit, and sadly the much-loved 1JZ-GTE along with the rest of the JZ engine lineup died along with them. The true continuation for the Mark II is the Toyota Mark X which came along in 2005 exclusively for Japan and select Asian countries and it is there for the same reason as the original Mark II, to fill in the gap between the Camry and the Crown. Like the X110 Mark II there is the “Triplet” Standard, Premium and Performance variant, with the standard being the basic model, Premium being the luxury one with features such as privacy shades and autonomous parking and the Sports variant featuring more performance image and options. The Mark X remained RWD throughout its generation, following the legacy of its predecessor. One of the Performance trim of the Mark X is the 350S which was meant to be the newer version of the Tourer V trim with advanced performance parts and electronics such as Adaptive Variable Suspension (AVS), Traction Control and other touches such as paddle shifters.

Interestingly, Modellista, which is Toyota’s in-house tuning companies, took the 350S Mark X and ultimately upgrading it, they installed a supercharger on the 2GR-FSE engine going for a solid 360 BHP, a 60 BHP more than a standard 350S. The result of this modification is the Mark X +M Super Charger. The tuning of the 350S by Modellista was the legacy of the Chaser Tourer V, since the latter was the top of the range model of the Mark II and it was commonly tuned by enthusiasts, the +M Super Charger is basically the modern take of it and it is one of the most underrated performance saloon cars out there, I honestly think that it really deserved more love than it has been.

The “Triplet Saloon” series is arguably one of the most amazing cars made by Toyota with its idea of putting 3 different versions on basically the same car, though this is common nowadays with the Germans of Mercs and Audis. Although the Mark II trios were gone, the legacy still remained alive to this day with the solid Mark X in terms of its Triplet models and the RWD layout. Today, the Mark X name wasn’t really a common sight since it is now only available in Japan and select Asian countries probably because of the existence of Lexus with its “F” marque. The older Mark II and its cousins may have more popularity compared to the X (the X110 2.5 Grande iR-V being my most favorite), but it is persuasive to say that both the Mark II and its newer version is definitely one of the serious all-rounder choice of car…