If there's anything that the Toyota Camry proves, it's that the Japanese can build a very good American car.
The Toyota Camry story starts in 1980 when Toyota introduced a compact rear-drive four-door oddly named the Celica Camry. But it was during the 1983 model year that the world was introduced to the familiar front-drive Camry. Replacing the archaic rear-drive Corona in Toyota's American lineup, the first Camry was available as either an incomprehensibly boxy four- or five-door hatchback sedan. There were two available four-cylinder engines, either a 2.0-liter fueled by gasoline or a 1.8-liter turbodiesel that virtually no one bought. The wheelbase was a mere 102.4 inches and the overall length just 175.6 inches, but it was definitely a Toyota Camry.
Almost instantly, it seemed, the Toyota Camry had a reputation as a solid, reliable and uninteresting car.
A new Toyota Camry appeared for 1987 wearing sheet metal that was unquestionably boring. Available as either a four-door sedan or five-door wagon, the second Camry came initially only with a 2.0-liter four. A new V6 and all-wheel drive were added to the Camry menu for 1988, but there was bigger news than that. Toyota opened a new plant in Georgetown, Kentucky that year to build Camrys for North America. And that freed the Camry to evolve as a North American market car. The Toyota Camry could now become more yankee doodle dandyified.
In fact, the all-new 1992 Toyota Camry for North America was a larger car than what was sold as a Camry in the rest of the world. And this round-edged new Camry set new standards for materials and build quality in the family sedan class. The third-generation Toyota Camry ripped up the sales charts quickly and established design themes that would stick at Toyota for another decade — and some would say that was nowhere near long enough.
Over the years there have been two-door Toyota Camrys and wagon Camrys, and even Camry Solara convertibles. But all Camrys have been built like solid ingots of automotive virtue. And virtuous things are often uninteresting. But no one buys a Toyota Camry for its entertainment value.
