On Wheels by Brooks Peterson

Saturday, October 13, 2001

Tough on critics, easy on drivers

George Gongora/Caller-Times

The 2002 Toyota Camry looks to build on the success and prestige of earlier models and in most ways succeeds.

Toyota makes life very, very tough for auto writers, particularly with the Camry. See, here's the thing: Your average motoring scribe really doesn't feel he/she has given you your money's worth unless he/she has pointed out - preferably in scathing language - all of the shortcomings of the vehicle du jour.
   Inconveniently, the Camry just doesn't lend itself to this kind of bashing. One of the pre-eminent figures in the auto-magazines - I believe it was David E. Davis Jr. of Automobile - pronounced the Camry the Best Automobile Made in America. And, modelwise, that was two Camry generations ago. Now the new-for-2002 Camry figures to build on that legacy - and, perhaps, take it to new heights.
   Now, your average scribe might just throw up his/her hands and capitulate, but not me. I feel I owe you the Dark Side of the Camry Experience.
   Ready?

George Gongora/Caller-Times

While the Camry is a fairly typical, bland family car, the controls have Art Deco hints.

   OK, here goes: Try though I might, I could not get the "resume" feature on the cruise control to work. Thus, every time I needed to re-engage the cruise function, I had to power the car back up to the desired velocity and punch in the setting again.
   And furthermore . . . uh, actually, there isn't a "furthermore." There were some elements of the Camry's personality that were less appealing (to me, at least) than others, but in terms of glaring flaws - nada, rien, niente, bupkis.
   This is not, however, to say that I go along 100 percent with Toyota's slightly overheated public-relations prose, which declares: "Now entering its fifth generation, the 2002 Toyota Camry moves from sensible . . . to sensual."
   Woo-hoo.
   Sorry to rain on your parade, fellas, but while the new Camry is handsome, nicely detailed and commendably aerodynamic (coefficient of drag goes down from .30 for the '01 to .284 for the new kid), but . . . sensual? I dunno. Maybe in a wholesome, well-scrubbed girl-next door manner, but this is hardly a slinky club-scene denizen.
   The thing to bear in mind here is that for the past few years, the Camry has been the most popular family sedan in this great land. What Toyota has done for '02 is give us more of the same, only better.
   Thus, you've got your all-new platform - the first in a decade - that delivers the usual improvements in NVH (noise, vibration and harshness) as well as enhanced structural rigidity. (With every carmaker touting its newly granitic underpinnings, it makes you wonder what the old platforms were made of - spaghetti?)

2002 Camry SE Five-passenger, front-wheel-drive sedan Base price: $23,700 Price as tested: $27,431 Drivetrain: Four-cam, 24-valve fuel-injected 3-liter V-6, 192 hp; four-speed automatic-overdrive transmission Brakes: Front and rear discs, power-assisted, with standard anti-lock (ABS) Fuel mileage: 20 city/28 highway Web site: www.toyota.com

   To me, though, some of the most telling points were in the details. Take the interior rearview mirror: It is not the auto-dimming kind, and the Camry's better for it. You get a little exercise by switching the manual thing from the day to the night setting, and you don't have to wait while the high-tech wizardry slo-o-o-wly does its work.
   Another bit of good news: You get the daytime running lights that have spurred so many rants in this space - but you also have the choice of shutting 'em off if you wish. Is that thinking outside the box, or what?
   Climb into the new Camry and you will discover that a lot of creative thinking has gone into the business of creating an interior that is at once inviting, spacious and a little imaginative.
   For sure, the seats have been crafted with luxury-loving Yanks in mind. Some will find them a little too cushy - the polar opposite of the upholstered-park-bench effect you get in some of the Teutonic competition - but a week's worth of driving produced no complaints from the lumbar area.
   I would be remiss were I not to acknowledge the mildly iconoclastic thinking that's on display around the dash and the door panels: There are satin-finished chrome (or something) accents here and there, and something of an Art Deco look to the instruments and controls.
   The driving experience itself is . . . well, righteous. Our tester was the midline SE, which has some sporting pretensions (hence the superfluous but inoffensive rear spoiler). In pursuit of (slightly) more entertaining handling, Toyota has stiffened the suspension and underpinnings a bit, but don't expect sport-sedan behavior. Even with the SE, ride quality takes precedence: It's not willowy-wallowy plush, but it does effectively screen out a lot of road harshness that you'd get from a genuinely sporting set-up.
   You will never be deceived into thinking that you're in anything but a family front-driver: The Camry can keep a line through a turn, but its forte is interstate cruising and around-town errands. Backroad banzai maneuvers are doable, but not recommended.
   Order up the V-6, and you'll get 192 well-mannered horses. They go about their work with only a faint muttering; even when you put your foot in it, there's a minimum of noise and commotion.
   It did seem that the V-6 and the four-speed automatic box weren't always on the best of terms: under certain circumstances, hitting the loud pedal hard resulted in a microsecond or two of hesitation.
   Finally, a couple of things you need to understand about the Camry phenomenon: First, you need to know that, like most Toyotas, this one won't break down in exotic locales, and may thereby deprive you of interesting encounters with colorful people. Most people think that's a plus. Go figure.
   Second, when you drive home in your new Camry, be prepared for your car-buff friends to rebuke you. This, they will say, is such a vanilla car. You, however, will have a ready comeback: There's still quite a constituency for vanilla - and when you apply the toppings judiciously, the result can be tastier than you might expect.
  
  

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