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With the midsized segment up for grabs, Toyota is hoping that its new 2012 Camry will win back the throne in the largest car segment in America. The official debut for the new Camry isn’t for a few more weeks, but as usual, images have been leaking on the internet for some time. The video above doesn’t show the Camry in much detail, but it does take you inside the dealer rollout for the anticipated new model. For more details on the actual looks, hit our gallery below.
47 Comments on “What’s Wrong With This Picture: 2012 Camry Edition...”
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A “giant leap”…In place. Really? – makes the 2012 Civic re-do look like a radical departure from 2011.
If they’ve changed anything they’ve only made it blander. Now that Toyota can’t rest on it’s bullet-proof reliability, do you think anyone would WANT THIS CAR?
Seems reasonable.
Look, folks: Toyota’s buyers like bland, boring cars. There’s actually a huge market for bland boring cars. Toyota knows this. Yeah, I know, you all remember your Supra Turbos and Mister Twos and Celicas and so forth. They didn’t sell (new, anyway) and they all got canned. Today’s Toyota isn’t that company anymore.
edit: weird, this wasn’t intended to be a reply to that guy. Well, whatever, it works here too.
On a similar note to this announcement –
McDonalds is offering the McDouble with ketchup!
The front of the current Avalon, combined with the rear of the 2012 Civic.
The light beige color truly is the perfect shade for this car….. describes its personality to a T.
When exactly did Toyota lose its reputation for reliability? When the MSM blew pedal misapplication and poorly installed aftermarket floormats out of proportion? The oldest cars I see on the road around me are all Toyota Camrys and Corollas. Toyota is an extremely conservative company, both in styling and in engineering. So if you want bleeding edge fashion & technology they are not for you. But the product still holds together like nothing else.
They are not exciting cars. Were never meant to be. My last 2 Ford products were both quite exciting, much like sudden bouts of diarrhea. Ford & GM both have product that seems improved over what they put out a few years ago, but they could not afford to warranty the car well enough to induce me to try either of them.
“My last 2 Ford products were both quite exciting, much like sudden bouts of diarrhea.”
I lol’d at work buddy, thank you.
I made the switch to Toyota a few years ago after a pair of Government Motors finest pickups and a POS GMC Envoy.
My Toyotas haven’t been in the shop for anything other than routine maintainence. No reason to go back.
On a somewhat-related note, GM has already issued a stop-sale order on the 2012 Impala, after a fire on the assembly line in Oshawa. Seems none of GM’s remedial engineers (yeah, I said it again, and I’ll keep saying it until the company gives me sufficient justification not to) snapped that there really should be some way to prevent power steering fluid from dripping onto the cat-con.
Because after all, GM has only been building this car since the Dawn of Time, and the 3.6L isn’t a recent invention either…
@Rob Finfrock: What about the apparently sub-par Honda engineers and their most recent worldwide recall? It spans 6 years and 1.5 million cars and SUVs transmissions.
I see why TTAC generally doesn’t post on recalls, because in today’s legal and technical environment they happen to everyone.
Sooner or later it will happen to everyone.
A “giant leap”…In place. Really? – makes the 2012 Civic re-do look like a radical departure from 2011.
I don’t know–those cars in the video look like they have zero-turn radius. That would be a pretty big leap IMO.
I see what inspired their front-end styling…
http://batonrougeusedcars.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/orlando-055.jpg
I disagree with Mr/Ms GMis4GoodmManners. I think it looks quite good, though still very mainstream. Beside the fact that the 6, 7 & 9 photos are compressed vertically (did Godzilla stomp it?), I’m not even sure these three photos are of the same car. The other photos show a reasonably stylish sedan with some modestly interesting details. It’s certainly not as puffy-looking as the current Camry.
I’m not a fan of the Hyundai’s over-styled appearance anymore; it’s already looking dated to me and I think they tried way too hard on the exterior. Nor does the Accord’s ungainly squareness do anything for me. I can’t even recall what the Altima and Malibu look like. How’s that for bland? For my money the best looking car in this segment is the Fusion.
Camry’s have NEVER been about being particularly stylish, and nothing seems to have changed with the new one. But I do think they’ve made a nice looking car that will sell boatloads. They may “lose the crown” but they’ll still have happy shareholders.
Those are just squashed photos of the 2010 Aurion
Toyota is between a rock and a hard place here…the car is still the best-selling passenger car in the land.
But the competition is improving, and receiving more positive “buzz” right now. This is because their former entries were, at best, mediocre, so they can reap good publicity simply by making improvements to a product that was nothing special in the first place.
If Toyota makes a radical change, it risks alienating the current customer base and sending them to competitors’ showrooms. But not enough change will result in disappointing reviews and the perception that the company has “lost it.”
I’m not seeing anything really bad here, but I’m also not seeing anything particularly exciting. It will be interesting to see how this car fares against the upcoming all-new Malibu, Accord and Fusion.
What’s wrong is the quality of these images and videos. I’ve seen better stuff about Bigfoot.
This is hardly new, no more so than the “all-new” 2012 Civic is. In profile, the car looks almost identical. Restyled front and rear and a new IP (IMHO, a step backward to their speedometer-centric 1997 era made even worse now with hidden needles) and steering wheel (gee, wonder where they got the idea for those 4-way control pads, um… Honda Civic?) do not an “all-new” car make. Sorry, Toyoda-San, it’s going to take a lot more than that for me to get “excited” about the new Camry.
I wonder if they’ll put the “Camry” and model designation on straight and level on the trunk lid this time around? That drives me nuts!
Of course, I’ll have to see one in person before I make any judgment about how it looks, but one thing I will say is that it appears they toned down the eagle-beak giant logo on the front, which is a step in the right direction! Cadillac started the giant logo thing with the 45 rpm record-sized logo on the Escalades. “RAM” is an equal offender, too. Memo to automakers: we have eyes, we can see who built the car, already!
Will the Camry be as bland as it is today? Well, I don’t see it as “bland” in the sense of being invisible, but “bland” in the sense Toyota made some features out of proportion that made it a caricature of itself. “Bland” can be a rather attractive good thing if done right. Not every car should try to look like a rocket ship or something out of a science fiction movie, just do the details right and the rest will take care of itself.
Obviously, I’m not a Toyota fan, but do keep an eye on them and respect what they’ve done to the auto industry since especially 30 years ago by building vehicles that do what they were advertised to do: Run and not break and keep running and not breaking – for a long time.
I’m glad they resisted the recent trend to put all the center stack controls on one big incomprehensible knob.
Step up the quality of the interior bits from the last couple generations and I think they will do well.
Inspiration for the interior design is clearly the current generation Impala. The golden age of Toyota and Honda is coming to an end now that they have some serious competition.
Dude, the current gen Impala does not look as good as the Camry. Not a chance.
Bull! My 2008 LT Impala with rear spoiler, dual exhaust, nicely styled 17″ alloys, side door trim and sculpted headlights looks much better to my eyes than the dreary as burnt toast Camry base and LE’s littering the highways with there cheesy plastic hubcaps, plain gneric side profile, dull boring gray mouse fur interior and the left in the sun too long front grille. Every 2012 Impala now has the dual exhaust, sport mesh SS grille, rocker flares and LT/LTZ get rear spoilers and pleasant alloy wheels. The std 3.6/6 speed are icing on the cake. this new Camry from the side looks as dreary as the current version, the front looks like a Corolla and the back still looks like a Camry. At least the interior is easier on the eyes. The 2013 Malibu looks to be a serious contender to this car and could outsell it like the current Cruze.
ponchoman49 said “My 2008 LT Impala with rear spoiler, dual exhaust, nicely styled 17″ alloys, side door trim and sculpted headlights looks much better to my eyes than the dreary as burnt toast Camry base and LE’s”
Ah, but have they (GM) corrected the problem of Impala’s (and other long wheelbase FWD cars) with under 20k miles having leaking roofs. As evidenced by my ’03 Bonneville and two Impala rentals (’08 and ’09) that I’ve dealt with.
For my daily driver give me boring and dull (or in my case the ’02 Diamante). For my fun ride I’ll pony up for a Challenger or Mustang.
ponchoman49: Read the comment above mine. He was comparing the interior of the Camry to the (not poorly put together, but aged) interior of the Impala. Interior. I was saying nothing about exterior design in my post.
I understand though. You read my post, and alone it looked like I was dissing the entire Impala design. The impassioned response of an owner is all good.
Well I’m glad we got that worked out. I have an 09 LTZ. When its little dirty…yeah I find it a bit bland. However no matter how dirty it is, the Impala looks positivly stunning, parked beside a Camry
I don’t know what’s wrong with your eyes but considering that the Impala has the least ergonomic interior possible in a “modern” (and I use that term very loosely with the Impala) car I highly doubt that Toyota took any inspiration from it other than what not to do.
That rear looks quite similar to the butt of the current (and horribly outdated) Mitsubishi Galant.
I’d yawn but I’m fairly sure this car is not worth the energy.
Not a Toyota hater–the wife drives a 2003 Camry that’s been an astonishingly good car, but I’ve never liked the 2007 redesign and this barely qualifies as an evolutionary step from that car.
Does Toyota still employ designers? It occurs to me that the “new” Corolla, Scion Tc, etc., were veerrrry conservative updates too. Where’s the Sienna guy when you need him?
The image of the black SE (?) shows a hint of the 2011 Sienna “V” grille.
You sure those aren’t photos of a 1998 Camry. It looks so not new.
Front end of Acura CSX.
Rear end of Subaru Legacy.
Side profile of current Camry.
Not a bad combo.
At least the interior looks like an improvement, the rest just smacks of a mid-cycle refresh. Toyota was never about excitement and the boomers who buy them wont care. A critical issue, however, will be fuel economy as Hyundai are setting new standards in this area they will have to at least meet.
The interior is much improved, they didn’t skimp at all. This is one of the first new cars under Toyoda to come out, I expect it to do well.
The artists rendering kind of looks like a dumbed down Avalon, not sure of generation.
Granted, the pics are small, but that dash/IP does not look class-leading to me. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and reserve final judgement until I see one in person. One question though, what’s up with the Playstation controllers on the steering wheel? Is that a sign I’m getting old? I’m only 35, but I do drive a Volvo. :-)
We will see if Toyota blows this big chance to regain customer confidence and satisfaction.
I’m not a Toyota Camry or Corolla fan – but the new 2012 car that I saw yesterday in Quebec magazine looks like what a Camry should be.
The Camry is Toyota’s bread and butter. They aren’t about do a radical makeover.
My overall impression is: “Yup, that’s a Camry.” Nothing new here, at least in terms of styling, really just a miz of the last few generations of Camry, with the new corporate grill.
That isn’t necessarily a bad thing — people who want a more current design are already in Hyundai or Kia showrooms. If the underlying car is solid, the current customer base will come back for more, just not 400K/year like in the old days.
I like the conservative looks. Stealth is good.
Now let’s see if the powertrain and handling have improved.
The white car isn’t a 2012 camry, the taillights are wrong.
Seconded.
The car in the black and white photos are not of the Camry. The tail lights are completely different from the pictures of the 2012 Camry itself.
The only improvement I’d like to see on the Camry is the interior. Judging by the pic, they’ve done a good job without making it tacky (ahem..Korea). A a couple of the white pictures are of current gen
Funny it kinda looks like a Cadillac STS from the side in the dark colors…
Those panel gaps seem huge and this is the press car.
Also I see alot of 1999-2000 Taurus in this. There just isn’t enough to differentiate this from the previous gen Camry and the competition is getting tougher.
That’s why the current version is still the top seller even after its 5th year
Toyota builds the blandest cars on the planet. It just amazes me that most car companies for the most part are not building anything worth buying.
Bland as bland can be. Are we sure this isn’t the 2011 model and they’re just saying it’s new? When you’re asleep from the bland-ness, how can you really tell the difference anyway? Because it looks like the same car with a GM style headlight and taillight facelift.
At least the front end isn’t melting anymore.