2007 Toyota Camry: First Look

By Feann Torr - 14/12/2005

With the recent talk of America's two largest car companies, Ford and General Motors, haemorrhaging funds at an increasing rate (due to the rise in petrol prices and consequential drop in sales for pick-up trucks and SUVs), Toyota must be rubbing its hands together with glee.

Could it be a coincidence, or perhaps a case of astute timing that photos of the all-new 2007 Toyota Camry, the highest selling car America, have surfaced?

Toyota will officially unveil the new Toyota Camry in January at the 2006 North American International Motor Show (NAIAS), or the Detroit Motor Show if you will.

Toyota seems to knows exactly what new car buyers want - the 2007 design in itself is more expressive than ever before, with a more provocative and (dare I say) risqué exterior design, with angular, modern-looking headlights, whose shape is mirrored at the rear with the brake light clusters.

The model shown in the photos is finished in a rather unflattering colour, it should be known.

We've had a look at one of the new Camrys finished in jet black and comes across as a much more self-assured vehicle, showing off the car's bonnet lines with more detail and giving the headlights more contrast.

Even the grey-coloured sports model pictured brings out the vehicle's lines with more panache.

Toyota plans to sell a 4-cylinder hybrid petrol-electric version alongside the petrol-only 4- and 6-cylinder models, and it expects to sell quite a few of these.

Here's the official line:

Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America (TMMNA) today announced the company's first North American gas-electric hybrid production will be at its Georgetown, Kentucky plant when production of a Camry hybrid begins in late 2006.

TMMK will have the capacity to build approximately 48,000 Camry hybrid vehicles per year. The addition of hybrid production to TMMK will include a $10 million investment in the plant.

"This is a proud day for the entire state of Kentucky," said Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher, who attended the news conference from Japan via satellite.

"For nearly 20 years, Toyota has called Kentucky home. We provide the kind of favourable business climate that encourages companies like Toyota to continue to invest here," continued Fletcher, not-so-subtly highlighting the fact that the United Auto Workers (UAW) union don't have as much power in the south of the USA as they do in places like Detroit.

"Once the decision was reached to make a hybrid version of our best-selling vehicle – the Camry – the Georgetown plant was the natural choice for Toyota's first North American hybrid production," added Gary Convis, president of TMMK and a managing officer of Toyota Motor Corporation.

"Our team members' hard work and dedication over the last 20 years will ensure that the production of these cutting-edge vehicles in Kentucky will also be hugely successful."

At the time of writing few officially sanctioned details have been forthcoming from the American arm of Toyota, but we do know that the new model will have a 0.28 coefficient of drag, so even the non-hybrid versions will afforded with good levels of fuel efficiency on the highway cycle.

Non-hybrid models are expected to feature a more fuel efficient 2.4-litre 4-cylinder engine outputting around 160 horsepower, which works out to around 118kW of power - largely unchanged from the current 4-banger.

A V6 petrol model is also expected, and the hybrid powertrain will feature regenerative braking akin to the Prius, which helps recharge the batteries that power its electric motors. Transmission options are expected to range from 5-speed manual's in the base models to 5-speed automatics for high end models.