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My colleague Allison Barfield recently reported on how it’s legal to buy a used hearse, and even daily drive it. But you can only register a hearse for funeral processions if you are a funeral director. Well it looks like there is a healthy interest in collecting traditional Japanese hearses.

Cars & Bids is currently hosting an auction for a traditional Japanese hearse built on a 1996 Toyota Crown chassis. The car in question features a “shrine” or “Myagata” style ornate wooden body. This incredibly detailed mini temple pushes the car’s height to just over seven feet.

Rear of a Japanese hearse
1996 Toyota Crown Hearse | Cars & Bids

I know what you’re thinking: a Toyota what? Toyota only introduced its luxury “Lexus” brand in its home Japanese market recently. That’s because there’s such national pride in the “Toyota” brand that even the wealthiest citizens wanted one. So the automaker offered luxury cars such as the “Century” and “Crown” at home.

This 1996 Toyoa Crown has a 2.0-liter I6 engine and a manual transmission. One very cool feature of this righthand-drive car is that it has a column shifter. Those were popular in the U.S. until the 1970s, but fell out of favor as automatics took over. But apparently they were still available on luxury Toyotas into the 1990s.

Interior of an ornamental hearse
1996 Toyota Crown Hearse | Cars & Bids

Many automakers offer hotrodded engine versions of their cars for traditional coachbuilders to turn into hearses. The Toyota Crown hearse for sale seems to have a standard engine, which would just make 130 horsepower and 133 lb-ft of torque. So it probably doesn’t have a ton of acceleration. But it does have just 34,000 miles on the clock.

You might say this car will make a slightly dark edition to someone’s collection. I mean, who knows how many bodies it has transported over the years. That said, it is also a beautiful piece of art and from the make and model to the modifications it is a unique piece of Japanese culture.

You can see a walk around of a similar, traditional Japanese hearse in the video below:

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