2007 toyota camry

James Healey of USA Today reviews the new Camry.  He has some good things to say about performance, but doesn’t love the new styling. Says Healey:

The ‘07 Camry looks appealingly sleeker than its predecessor, but that still leaves a lot of room before you arrive at “sexy” on the style continuum. Toyota, in a search for actual styling instead of mere looks, has blemished the design by borrowing the raised-trunk look from the now-uglified BMW sedans. If you have to swipe from Germans, guys, purloin Audi’s lines.

Where you’re likely to find excitement: Under the hood. The optional 3.5-liter V-6 engine turns the sedan into a whoopee-mobile. The engine’s quick off the mark, and the rate of acceleration seems to get even better as the engine revs faster. Not only fun, it provides plenty of power for those who live in the mountains or routinely carry full loads of people and cargo.

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Below are highlights from a terrific review by Warren Brown of The Washington Post that appears on the Providence Journal website.

“the 2007 Toyota Camry SE V6 was the best Camry I’ve driven or seen.”

“That’s saying something. Longtime readers know I’ve cared little for the Toyota Camry…It was insufferably boring, the automotive equivalent of celibacy…But I’ve long found sin more interesting than virtue.”

“Someone at Toyota has discovered that passion and marriage are not mutually exclusive concepts, that virtue absent sin lacks dynamic appeal, that sex sells.”

“Exterior styling is sinewy, evocative. It makes you feel something where with the old Camry, you once felt nothing…After 24 model years in the United States, we have an emotional Camry!”

“Its overall stance bespeaks swagger.”

“The interior is a work of swank modernity…The overall passenger cabin is comfortable, ergonomically sensible. I like it.”

“I also like the way the tested 2007 Camry SE V6 drove in the ice and rainstorms …the car felt solid, sure-footed…”

The 2007 Camrys go on sale domestically in March…Expect 2007 base prices close to the current Camry SE level of $24,025.

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Neal Rubin of The Detroit Press, an admitted non-authority when it comes to cars, calls the new Camry Hybrid, ”an impressive vehicle” in a review of his five-day test drive.

Rubin  makes note of the “zippy-looking, two-tone gray dashboard” that contains an MPG Consumption guage that, “lets you know when you’re being efficient and when you’re being clumsy.”

Rubin, however, says that In 240 miles of driving - about a third on surface streets - he averaged only a modest 30 mpg despite early EPA estimates that said the hybrid would get 43 mpg in the city and 37 on the freeway.

He also notes that a performance-driving friend who tested the Camry Hybrid found the transmission indecisive sometimes when it switched from electric to gasoline power.

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Click here to view the new Toyota Camry Hybrid TV spot.

It’s not bad branding spot (for hybryd synergy), but doesn’t convey much about the car itself.

CNET editor’s take on the new Camry Hybrid:

The new 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid, following in the tire tracks of Honda’s Accord Hybrid, brings the promise of fuel savings and interesting technology to the mainstream-sedan market.

* performance during a limited test-drive over flat roads was much like its Prius sibling’s.

*at low speeds, the electric motor can do all the work, with very light throttle inputs.

* at full throttle, the sedan has adequate power for passing

* unlike the narrow Prius tires, the Camry’s P215/60R16 all-season tires grip the road nicely.

* Camry’s clean, new style will appeal to some buyers who don’t want to shout their green credentials

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