New Toyota Camry prototype review
New Toyota Camry prototype review
The Toyota Camry has not been seen in British dealers since 2004, when the rise of diesel caught the petrol-focused global saloon on the hop and the Japanese manufacturer elected to focus on the European-market Avensis instead. Now the Camry name is about to make a return to British dealers - thanks, ironically, to the current down-swing on diesel sales. And Auto Express has had an early taste of a prototype, ahead of sales starting in the first quarter of 2019.
The first thing you notice about the Camry is that it’s not at all a direct successor for the Avensis (production of which has officially ceased). Toyota’s British-built rival for the Ford Mondeo and Vauxhall Insignia had stayed at roughly the same size throughout its life, but the Camry is an altogether bigger beast. Indeed, at 4,885mm, it’s longer than the already-huge Ford - a reflection of the fact that this model is a huge seller in the United States, where it needs to compete against other ‘mid-sized sedans’.
The new model is based on the same Toyota New Global Architecture - in effect, a set of chassis components and common parts that we’ve already experienced in everything from the current Prius to the C-HR crossover. In basic terms, it means the new Camry is a front-wheel-drive saloon with MacPherson struts at the front end and a double-wishbone layout at the rear.
It’s also a hybrid - and only a hybrid, if you’re a European customer. American Camrys come with V6 or 2.5-litre four-cylinder petrol power, but we’re only being offered the same 2.5 four-pot as part of an electrified set-up that produces 215bhp - enough, Toyota claims, for a 0-62mph time of 8.3 seconds and a top speed of 112mph.
The European Camry has had a nip and a tuck in the right places over its American cousins - a higher grade of cabin materials throughout, different settings for the power steering, and retuned suspension, including what the car’s chief engineer Masato Katsumata calls “a more expensive shock absorbers”.
Toyota believes that greater recognition of hybrid powertrains could lead more buyers to consider the Camry on efficiency grounds, and on paper at least, it should be in the ballpark for the class. Engineers are predicting official average consumption could be around 66mpg, with CO2 emissions of 100g/km - although this still needs to be subjected to the tougher WLTP economy tests.
source : http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/toyota/c...
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