What the Camry has not done well is stir the emotions of people. Since its inception, the Camry has looked... well... bland. Not that it needs to look sexy, the Camry is one of the best-selling vehicles in North America. The SE-spec version of the last-gen Camry was starting to look good, but it still didn't look as exciting as the offerings from Nissan and Honda.
So for 2007, Toyota gave its family sedan workhorse a new powertrain and a significant face lift. The Camry's new appearance may not appeal to the car's traditional target demographic, but the kids sure seem to love this new look. We decided to get the keys to an '07 Camry and see if the new car can live up to its sporty new appearance.
Our test car is the sporty SE version, so it has quite a bit more flare than the standard sedan. In addition to a sport-tuned suspension, the Camry SE comes with a full aero kit, underbody aerodynamics and 17-inch alloy wheels. For some reason, this Camry really appeals to car-loving 20-somethings. Not only do our friends in the tuning industry keep asking us about this car, random strangers stop us in parking lots to ask questions about this new sporty-looking sedan. While we're sure this curbside appeal may die down in a year or two, we'll bet our house that this is the first Camry to even have a curbside appeal. Based on its looks alone, we could see this Camry becoming a favorite of State-side VIP tuners...The performance of this "sport-edition" Camry ain't too shabby, either. We took this Camry up to San Francisco and back, as we wanted to see how it fared as a cruiser. Long story short, this Camry fared quite nicely. A new 268-horsepower/248 lb.-ft. torque 3.5-liter V6 lies under the hood of this car, and it's mated to a 6-speed automatic transmission with a "sport-shift" mode. We found that the new Camry is able to get up to speed quite easily. Even when we're cruising at freeway speeds, we can still stab the gas to pass slower cars with ease.
Toyota says that the Camry SE uses some type of underbody aerodynamics to make the car more stable at high speeds, but we didn't quite feel it. At prolonged speeds north of 80-90 mph, the car would start to feel really light. At first we thought we were just getting hit by strong crosswinds, but when we saw the grassy fields and trees standing motionless out the window, that theory quickly disappeared. Still, the Camry SE can handle long stretches of open highway at speeds of 85 mph without difficulty.Speaking of high-speed runs on long, open stretches of freeway, the Camry SE gets some pretty impressive gas mileage. If we wanted to, we could go from Los Angeles to San Francisco on just one tank of gas. Mind you, we did fill up mid-way, but that was mostly so we could fill up on food... Though stiffer than the suspension found on the regular car, the "sport tuned" suspension of the Camry SE isn't harsh at all; our test car's suspension was able to absorb all road imperfections without transferring any of that harshness into the cabin.
Making that long journey in the Camry was actually pretty pleasant, too. Yeah, we could have made the L.A.-SF trip in an hour or so on a plane, but making that trip in the Camry was a lot more comfortable (and cheaper) than any round-trip flight on SouthWest ever could be. Sporty-looking or not, our test car still is a Camry, so its cockpit is as nice and as comfortable as any other Toyota (save for the Echo - that thing was horrible...)While the Camry's interior styling is a little bland, it is at least very clean. There are no buttons scattered all over the place, it isn't over-designed (as the dash from the last-gen Echo was) and the fit and finish are superb. While the dash looks so-so during the day, it actually gets pretty cool at night. In the dark, the entire dash takes on an eerie blue glow -- it looks a bit futuristic, and we'd say that this Camry's trick interior lighting would look right at home on a Scion. Our test car also came with an auxiliary-in jack, 440 watt 6-disc stereo and heated leather seats, so as if we need to say it again, this Camry was a very comfortable place to be during those 7-hour stretches of driving.
All in all, our Camry SE, with its aero kit, sport-tuned suspension, 268-horsepower V6, heated leather seats, 440-watt stereo and more came in at a very reasonably-priced $29,638. We'd say this car is perfect for the guy that needs a "family car" but still wants to look cool. We actually kind of want one of these, too.
