Your gaming chair may recline. It may have RGB. It may even have a lumbar pillow that pretends to help. Toyota has decided that it is cute. Toyota Boshoku has developed the “CROWN SEAT” Desk Chair, a made-to-order chair based on the front seat used in the Toyota Crown. This luxurious car seat turned gaming chair will set you back nearly $3,500, more than twice the amount I spent on my most recent desktop setup.
A Crown seat for your spreadsheet kingdom
The idea is exactly as strange as it sounds. Toyota took the front seat from its Crown lineup, put it on an office-chair base, and turned it into something meant for a desk instead of a driveway.
The official catalog shows a chair that still very much looks like it belongs in a car, with the kind of cushioning and support you would expect from a premium vehicle seat. Toyota Boshoku says the goal is to bring the Crown’s comfort into offices and living spaces, which is exactly the sort of sentence that sounds strange until you remember how many hours people spend sitting at a desk.
Toyota Boshoku also worked with Japanese office furniture company ITOKI on the chair structure, so it can function like an actual desk chair. It also carries over several comfort features from the Crown, including powered reclining, powered seat adjustment, lumbar support, and front tilt control.
The comfort features are where the chair starts sounding more tempting than it should. There is a seat heater for cold mornings and overactive office AC. There is also seat ventilation, with built-in fans that help pull heat away from the backrest and cushion. Long workdays, gaming sessions, or late-night spreadsheet marathons should be a little kinder to your back.
The seat belt buckle charges your phone now
The best detail is sitting right where the seat belt buckle would normally be. Toyota has turned that area into a USB-C charging port, so your phone can plug into the chair itself.
A portable rechargeable battery powers the electric adjustments, heater, and ventilation, giving the whole thing the behavior of a powered car seat in office-chair form.
At around $3,500, the Crown Seat Desk Chair costs more than plenty of gaming rigs. Only 70 units are reportedly planned for Japan, which could make it difficult for customers to get their hands on one. If you want something that’s easier to get your hands on, our list of the best gaming chairs you can buy right now is worth checking out.