Century PH: Toyota's ultra-luxury autos will be sold in the Philippines

At the 2025 Japan Mobility Show, Toyota spoke of a great reorganization of its brand strategy. Daihatsu will still be focused on automobiles for customers on a budget and in developing markets. Toyota will offer a wide spectrum of vehicles, as before. GR will be the company’s performance and motorsport brand. Lexus is free to become more of an innovator with its premium line of vehicles.

That freedom was granted because Century will now be the luxury brand of Toyota instead of just a pair of models with no-brainer names: SUV and Sedan. Yes, Lexus will still make awesome and supremely quiet and smooth vehicles, but they will now think more out of the box rather than go traditional luxury.

Here’s the thing, though: interesting as Century would be given its reputation as the automobile used by the Emperors of Japan for the last couple of decades, we didn’t expect there to be much of a chance for it to be offered through authorized Philippine dealerships. 

That will change.

Insiders who are very familiar with the upcoming plans of Toyota have just informed us that Century will be offered by dealerships in the Philippines. This comes as a surprise, as Toyota has never offered Century here before, but it seems there really is demand for Century in the Philippines. Actually, some dealers told us that they also got questions about Century when the first photos of the Century Coupe Concept were revealed at JMS.

But if you notice, we said Century will be offered at dealerships, not a dealership. We’ve been told that there are five that are planned to be appointed for Century.  While there is demand for Century’s vehicles, it will be limited to a very small and exclusive list of clients. We would wonder what the viability of a Century-exclusive dealership will be like in the market.

What we expect is for Century to follow the example set by Lexus: to have one flagship dealership owned by Toyota Motor Philippines with several sub or authorized outlets attached to existing Toyota dealer partners positioned at key locations around the country, with aftersales service.

As to what the pricing would be, well, the rivals of Century will be at the level of Rolls-Royce and Bentley, so it would be logical to expect pricing in the region of those vehicles. The problem, however, is that Century will have a big advantage: exemptions. There exists no free trade agreement with the UK where Rolls-Royce and Bentley are made, but JPEPA exists with Japan, and that means the 3.5L and 5.0L engines powering the Century SUV and Century Sedan, respectively, will be covered.

There will also be the advantage of time. A vehicle at the level of Century will be largely bespoke; that means customers will get to personalize their cars with specific colors, leather options, stitching, interior finishes, and so on and so forth to their hearts (and Swiss accounts) content. And speccing, checking, and shipping a car from Japan to the Philippines will take much less time than from the UK. That’s just a guess, but logical nonetheless.

We’ll watch out for more developments on Century in the coming months.