If you really want what a classic big sedan has to offer, is the Toyota Crown for you?

There is but one single full-sized sedan sold in Canada that doesn’t come from a luxury brand. It’s not a Ford, and it’s not a Chevrolet. It’s a Toyota.

The first thing you notice about the Toyota Crown is how tall it is. Recognizing buyers of big sedans aren’t getting any younger, the Crown meets you higher up, instead of forcing you down. By itself, the Crown resembles a traditional sedan. Then you pull up to a traffic light and notice you’re at eye level with the driver of the Highlander in the next lane and you realize how tall it really is.

Light steering is the first big sedan trait. The Crown has five drive modes, and each step from Eco to Sport+ makes the steering feel slightly heavier by reducing the assist. But the range goes from 1970s-domestic-sedan-one-finger driving in Eco to maybe needing one full hand if you’re parking in Sport+.

No matter what mode you’re in, the Crown feels lazy in the best big-car way. It does turn when you move the wheel, but it’s like the Crown is waiting a beat to make certain you’re sure. It doesn’t feel detached, but more like a well-trained golden retriever following at your side. The experience is relaxing. Reassuring, even.

If you’re thinking big sedan and remembering the bobbing, heaving motion of 1970s large cars, that gave them the Land Yacht nickname, you’re probably not remembering them fondly. The Crown doesn’t do that. This Platinum version of the Crown has adaptive suspension. It changes its responses almost constantly based on how the car is moving and reacting to bumps. Roll over a pothole, and you can hear a thwack through the tire, but you won’t really feel it. Drive over a frost heave and you can feel the big body hunker down on the suspension as you crest the heave and then relax upward as you follow the pavement back down. But it’s just one up-and-down motion, not the repeated bobbing of old big cars. More importantly, for ride comfort and making sure you don’t spill your coffee, it’s an impeccably controlled up-and-down movement. Slow, steady, gradual. Moving from Comfort to Sport + changes the responses, making the up-and-down quicker but still well-controlled. And, critically, it’s smooth enough that it won’t wake up the kids, no matter how lightly they might sleep.

Every Crown is a hybrid, but there are two different systems. Limited gets a low-horsepower system that feels like every hybrid Toyota car since the first Prius decades ago. It’s slow but smooth.

The Platinum, which I drove, uses a very different system. It’s called Hybrid Max, and it behaves more like a non-hybrid vehicle. In a car like this, that’s a shame. The engine and electric motor deliver a big shove in the backside when you floor the accelerator, but the power also yanks the wheel hard in your hands. It’s called torque steer, because the vehicle is being steered by the engine’s torque (motive force) and not by what you want it to do. It mostly disappeared from new cars decades ago, so it’s a surprise to experience it here, where it works to pull the Crown out of your lane under hard acceleration.

Ask for power from the engine and things get noisy. This four-cylinder has a lot to say and not much you’ll want to hear. The automatic transmission is clunky and sends jolts through the cabin as it changes gears. It wasn’t particularly fuel efficient, either, as I saw 9.1 litres/100 km with the car, or about the same as I would have expected from a larger, taller, non-hybrid crossover.

Inside, this is a very small, big car. Raising the seats puts the driver close to the roof and leaves little headroom up front and even less in the back. The massively wide centre console doesn’t give the driver and front passenger much room between the hard plastic of the door and the hard plastic centre of the console, either. There’s extra elbow room, but it doesn’t feel larger than a Camry or a Civic, and when it comes to space, how it feels is more important than the numbers. Trunk room isn’t any better; the space is deep in length, but shallow in height, just barely larger than the compact Civic.

The Crown offers suspension grace, and, although it’s not smooth, it delivers plenty of pace. But when it comes to space, the last big sedan doesn’t measure up.