For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Toyota Crown have pretensioners to tighten the seatbelts and eliminate dangerous slack in the event of a collision. The Maserati Ghibli doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
In the past twenty years hundreds of infants and young children have died after being left in vehicles, usually by accident. When turning the vehicle off, drivers of the Crown are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The Ghibli doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The Toyota Crown has standard driver and front passenger side knee airbags mounted low on the dashboard. These airbags helps prevent the driver and front passenger from sliding under their seatbelts or the main frontal airbags; this keeps them better positioned during a collision for maximum protection. Knee airbags also help keep the legs from striking the dashboard, preventing knee and leg injuries in the case of a serious frontal collision. The Ghibli doesn’t offer a front passenger side knee airbag.
The Crown has a standard Secondary Collision Brake, which automatically applies the brakes in the event of a crash to help prevent secondary collisions and prevent further injuries. The Ghibli doesn’t offer a post collision braking system: in the event of a collision that triggers the airbags, more collisions are possible without the protection of airbags that may have already deployed.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The Crown Limited/Platinum has a standard Parking Support Brake that uses rear sensors to monitor for objects to the rear and automatically applies the brakes to prevent a collision. The Ghibli doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the Crown. But it costs extra on the Ghibli.
Both the Crown and Ghibli have rear cross-traffic warning, but the Crown Limited/Platinum has Parking Support Brake (automatically applies the brakes) to better prevent a collision when backing near traffic. The Ghibli’s Rear Cross Path doesn’t automatically brake.
The Crown’s driver alert monitor detects an inattentive driver then sounds a warning and suggests a break. According to the NHTSA, drivers who fall asleep cause about 100,000 crashes and 1500 deaths a year. The Ghibli doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
Both the Crown and the Ghibli have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, blind spot warning systems, rearview cameras, rear cross-path warning and available around view monitors.
For its performance in IIHS driver-side and passenger-side small overlap frontal, moderate overlap frontal, updated side impact, headlight, daytime pedestrian crash prevention, and nighttime pedestrian crash prevention testing, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the Crown its highest rating: “Top Safety Pick Plus” for 2023, a rating granted to only 67 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Ghibli has not been fully tested, yet.