Pricing, Fuel Economy Revealed for Toyota Camry AWD

An all-wheel-drive vehicle will reappear early this spring after a decades-long absence, tempting those who demand a sure-footed sedan with untold amounts of badge and nameplate loyalty.

While the Toyota Camry AWD might arrive too late to tackle our current winter, the future is a blank slate, ready to be filled with instances of snow-flinging fun. Perhaps a dirt road race against a Subaru Legacy driver is in the cards.

As the Camry AWD heads to dealerships, Toyota has revealed pricing and fuel economy for the intriguing model.

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Buy/Drive/Burn: Japanese Two-doors for a New Century

Last time on Buy/Drive/Burn, we took a look at three two-door, mid-market offerings from American brands for the 2001 model year. Most people hated such a Sophie’s Choice.

Perhaps things will be a bit better today, as we cover the same market segment with offerings from Japan.

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Don't Drop Your Coffee: Toyota Unveils All-Wheel Drive Camry, Avalon

Depending on where you live, the newest variants of the Toyota Camry and its big brother, the Avalon, may arrive too late to help you conquer any wintry weather. This winter, anyway. Slated to arrive in North American markets starting early next spring, the two sedans boast something unfamiliar to owners of these long-running models: All-wheel drive.

In an announcement that took many by surprise, the automaker claims these new AWD sedans can thank the new-for-2019 RAV4 for their existence. A little engineering work later, and here we are. The 29-year drought of AWD Camrys has ended.

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Toyota Camry TRD Not Nearly As Dear As Its Big Brother

We talked up the amazingly real Toyota Avalon TRD recently, making note of its lofty, second-from-the-top price point, but now the second TRD sedan shoe has dropped.

According to pricing guides seen by CarsDirect, those of you salivating at the thought of taking a Camry to the next level — and frankly, who isn’t — can expect to pay significantly less for the smaller of Toyota’s two testosterone-fueled sedans. Five figures less.

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The 340,000-mile 2004 Toyota Camry Is Finally Gone, But It's Far From Dead

The story of the 340,000-mile 2004 Toyota Camry LE V6 that became the 15-winter story of a 347,000-mile Camry now belongs to another author.

My in-laws’ beautifully-maintained Camry ticked up to 352,000 miles – 567,013 kilometres on the odometer, to be precise – when they finally replaced their stalwart sedan with a 2019 Kia Optima.

The decision was not prompted by a breakdown. The Camry isn’t destined for a junkyard. It’s not being parted out.

We listed the Camry for $1,200 on Kijiji, quickly fielded 26 inquiries, and ended up selling this famous Camry to, you guessed it, a Camry owner who wants to add to his Camry stable.

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'That Might Scare Some People At Stoplights'

“Win on Sunday, sell Camrys on Monday,” as the old saying goes. That’s what Toyota’s doing in the lead-up to this week’s debut of two vehicles you’ve waited patiently for. Nah, let’s be real. You’ve resided in a heightened state of suspense, nerves jangling, taking Ativan just to get a few hours of sleep, ever since last week’s teaser of the upcoming TRD Camry and Avalon.

Don’t worry, they’re almost here — and now there’s a whole Tundraful of eye-popping, pants-rending optical candy to feast your peepers on. But don’t settle for having us louts describe the TRD-ified family sedans for you. What does defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr., noted lover of Toyota, think?

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From the 'Not Surprising' Files: There's Finally Cash on the Hood of New Toyota Camrys

Toyota resisted the urge for some time. However, the reality of falling sales numbers meant the automaker had to finally pull out its wallet and start incentivising the country’s best-selling midsize sedan.

We told you earlier this month that Camry sales aren’t enjoying the same buoyancy seen after the release of the new-for 2018 model in the latter part of last year. Possibly as a result, Toyota’s discounts, initially available only to Camry lessees, now migrate to buyers.

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2018 Toyota Camry XLE V6 Review - The Default Choice for a Reason

It happened again. A neighbor, a casual acquaintance at best, messaged me on Facebook, asking for a used car recommendation. As usual, I suspect they were trying to get me to literally point them to a specific car for sale, but I’ve been roped into enough third-party late-night Craigslist-and-Cars.com binges to bite this time.

“Just buy the best Camry you can afford,” was my reply. I’ve given the same advice before to plenty of other non-enthusiasts, those for whom a car is merely an appliance. While I can easily rattle dozens of interesting choices to someone properly invested in driving enjoyment, I’d rather avoid the repercussions of recommending a 10-year-old M3 to a suburban mom who wants nothing more than a hassle-free commute.

Toyota pulled the cover off of the newest Camry in Detroit last year, and the rakish new styling has been flooding the streets ever since. Tim tested the four-cylinder model a few weeks back, but he wished for a bit more power. Fortunately, the gods of horsepower and displacement smiled upon me, and delivered upon my driveway this 2018 Toyota Camry XLE with the big V6.

Does the redesign tick the default box for enthusiasts, too?

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America's Favorite Sedan to Take a Boat Trip

The Toyota Camry holds the remarkable distinction of being a midsize sedan with U.S. sales that actually increased over the first five months of 2018. Impossible, you say. It can’t be. You’d trade your kids for a crossover, but wouldn’t stoop to pick up a “free sedan” voucher if you passed one on the sidewalk.

Well, it’s true. Year to date, Camry sales are up 2.1 percent in the United States. Last year’s introduction of an eight-generation midsizer seemed to halt the sedan’s sales decline, though we’d be fools to think it’s anything other than a temporary lift. Camry volume sunk 7.9 percent in May. June could send the model into the negative.

Toyota seems aware of this, too. Maybe that’s behind the decision to send the Camry somewhere it hasn’t been in years.

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2018 Toyota Camry XLE - Jack of All Trades

Complete the last part of the phrase in the headline up there. Yeah, it’s “master of none.” Thing is, that doesn’t apply to the 2018 Toyota Camry – it really is a jack of all trades, and it even masters at least some.

Fight it we might, but most automotive journalists, or at least most of us who grew up as enthusiasts, have biases. One of mine has been to rag on the Camry, dismissing it like so many others as a boring and beige (figuratively, not literally) commuter sleigh.

Toyota was listening, and every generation got a bit better, even if the driving dynamics part of the equation was still lacking compared to some of the competition.

Well, now that part is finally on par.

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2018 Toyota Camry SE Hybrid - Acknowledge Your True Nature

“When the mind houses two personalities, there’s always a conflict. A battle.”

So says the psychiatrist in the third-last scene of Psycho in an attempt to explain the curious behaviour of an odd motel proprietor. It’s an age-old internal conflict depicted time and again in novels and film — Norman and Mother, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Golyadkin Sr. and Golyadkin Jr. in Dostoevsky’s The Double, that Black Swan girl — and it’s perfectly embodied by the sportier of the “green” Toyota Camrys.

In SE Hybrid guise, America’s best-selling midsize sedan tries to be two things. At its core, it’s a competent, mature sedan, endowed with all the attributes needed to make it a first pick among car buyers. But it’s also conflicted, pressured to be something it’s not.

If these past stories tell us anything, it’s that the dominant personality always wins.

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Ask Jack: Isn't The Civic Just… Smashing?

We all have our perversions, and here’s mine: I will always have a soft spot for ugly-duckling products that were eclipsed by the competition or cannibalized by their own relatives. First example: the Apple 3 (properly yclept Apple ///). We don’t have time here to discuss how and why the “business-focused” 8-bit Apple failed, but I will forever cherish the fact that Apple put out a service bulletin for improperly seated microchips where the fix was to pick it up and drop it like it was hot — because it was, in fact, too hot.

I could go on… and I will! The Fender Jazzmaster, the Omega Seamaster, the Members Only jacket that cost slightly more because it had a zipper breast pocket instead of the elastic-clinch one, the F-111. Show me something that didn’t quite catch the imagination of the public, and you will have my complete attention. If the reason for that lack of public attention has to do with the product involved being just a little bit too complex, demanding, fussy, or eccentric — well then, my friend, we are really cooking.

One such example of that in the automotive world was the fifth-generation Maxima, sold here from 2000-2003, with particular emphasis on the 3.5-liter, six-speed, limited-slip bad boys produced in the second half of the run. Those were slick-looking, powerful, deeply satisfying automobiles… that had absolutely zero appeal for the credit criminals and shifty-eyed fast-food night managers who, by my scientific calculations, make up ninety-six-point-three percent of Nissan’s customer base. Those people didn’t see the reason to buy a Maxima when they could get an Altima for less.

As a consequence, the sixth-generation Maxima became a giant Altima, the seventh-generation Maxima became a rarity, and the eighth-generation Maxima became a rental car.

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QOTD: Camry, Camry, on the Wall, Which Is the Greatest Toyota Camry of Them All?

The launch of the 2018 Toyota Camry in July 2017 marked the arrival of America’s eighth Camry. Near the end of Ronald Reagan’s first term, the first Camry — not the first Camry, but the first Camry available for U.S. consumption — was launched in front-wheel-drive sedan and hatchback formats.

By 1997, the Camry was America’s best-selling car — a title it has held in each of the last 15 years.

The second-generation Camry spawned a V6 powerplant, available all-wheel drive, and a hatchback-replacing wagon. The third-generation Camry kept the sedan and wagon, dropped the AWD, added a coupe, and was built in America. The fourth iteration of the Camry, 1997-2001, dropped the wagon and began to be seen as the automatic choice for America’s midsize sedan buyers. The fifth Camry, which ran from 2002-2006, was sturdy enough to be form the foundation for two more Camry generations. The sixth Camry was the first to be available as a hybrid, but it put an end to the coupe, which in the prior two generations was known as Camry Solara. The seventh Camry, 2012-2017, sometimes hailed as the most American-made of all cars, benefited from a thorough refresh for 2015. The eighth Camry, at dealers now, represents much more than a major overhaul, with significant increases in fuel economy standing out as a leading improvement.

But which Toyota Camry is best of all?

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Don't Be so Quick to Pull the Trigger on That 2018 Toyota Camry - 2017s Are Cheap and Abundant

The 2018 Toyota Camry is the first truly, completely, all-new Toyota Camry since 2002. Built on Toyota’s New Global Architecture, it’s stiffer, safer, and by all accounts, substantially better to drive than the 2017.

Fuel efficiency took a leap forward. Horsepower did, too. The feature count, including the safety department, was elevated. The 2018 Toyota Camry even has a sense of style, whether you like its sense or prefer less offensive past examples.

With an all-new architecture for an in-demand car — yes, even as sedans slow, the Camry is still the 15-time best-selling car in America — comes a lack of willingness on the part of Toyota to deal. That’s made all the more true by the current cost of importing Camrys. While production will eventually be in full swing at the Camry’s Georgetown, Kentucky, assembly plant, early copies of the 2018 Camry hail from Japan.

Rare will be the buyer who heads into a U.S. Toyota store this Labor Day weekend with a strong preference for the old Camry, still available in abundance on dealer lots. Even with concerns (albeit modest concerns; this is a Camry) regarding first-model-year reliability, the MY2018 Camry is the bright and shiny object.

The 2018 Toyota Camry is better than the 2017 Toyota Camry: objectively, subjectively, on paper, on the road. But is it 41-percent better?

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All of the New 2018 Toyota Camrys Sold in America in July Were Japan Imports

We learned early in July that many of the early 2018 Toyota Camrys available in Toyota’s U.S. showrooms wouldn’t be built in Toyota’s Georgetown, Kentucky, assembly plant.

Through June, not a single one of the 2016 and 2017 Camrys sold in America were imported. But all of the 2018 Toyota Camrys sold in July came across the Pacific from Japan.

Granted, most of the Camrys leaving Toyota showrooms are still old new Camrys, not new new Camrys.

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  • EBFlex China can F right off.
  • MrIcky And tbh, this is why I don't mind a little subsidization of our battery industry. If the American or at least free trade companies don't get some sort of good start, they'll never be able to float long enough to become competitive.
  • SCE to AUX Does the WTO have any teeth? Seems like countries just flail it at each other like a soft rubber stick for internal political purposes.
  • Peter You know we’ve entered the age of self driving vehicles When KIAs go from being stolen to rolling away by themselves.
  • Analoggrotto TTAC is full of drug addicts with short memories. Just beside this article is another very beautiful article about how the EV9 was internationally voted by a renowned board of automotive experts who are no doubt highly educated, wealthy and affluent; the best vehicle in entire world. That's planet earth for you numbskulls. Let me repeat: the best vehicle in the world is the Kia EV9. Voted, and sealed, and if you try to deny it Fanny Willis is ready to prosecute you; but she will send her boyfriend instead because she is busy.