There's a whole lot of smart people in this world. Some are scholars. Some are down-to-earth common folk. Most are not car critics, and the opinions of car critics aren't necessarily a whole lot smarter than the opinions of down-to-earth common folk (like myself). So, while Motor Trend magazine may have indeed picked the 2007 Toyota Camry as their "Car of the Year", I don't feel a whole lot of obligation to get into line with their viewpoint.

In fact, I feel a whole lot of obligation to set the record straight.

In my opinion, the 2007 Toyota Camry is one of the butt ugliest cars on the road today. It's not just ugly, because functionally, the '07 redesign is not as significant as Motor Trend would have you believe, and all the good press that Toyota's been getting over the last couple months strikes me as a whole lot of brainless twits jumping on the Motor Trend bandwagon instead of looking at the car, driving the car, and actually thinking about it and coming to their own conclusions.

Kind of reminds me of a Bertrand Russell quote. Russell was a bona fide "smart guy" (not to mention a Nobel prize winner), so I take his thoughts with a little more weight than I do those of folks over at Motor Trend. Russell once said:

"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a wide-spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible."

That jibes with the lesson you and I should have taken to heart back in kindergarten: remember the story of The Emperor's New Clothes?? Sure you do. All the Brainless Twits pretend to see beautiful clothes just because they're afraid of saying something stupid.

Well, I don't give two peditos whether I say something dumb or not, so let me repeat:
the 2007 Toyota Camry is one of the butt ugliest cars on the road today.

That is certainly not the viewpoint of 90% of the auto press these days, but that's because my opinion is the "plain as the nose on your face" common sense viewpoint....not the viewpoint of somebody who has to worry about one of the world's largest car companies yanking 4-page glossy advertising spreads if you tell the honest truth. I'll tell it like I see it.

And the truth is that the 2007 Toyota Camry is one of the butt ugliest cars on the road today.

That's the crux of my opinion, though I'd also suggest that this year's "Car of the Year" award is irrelevant for lots of other reasons too (those guys at Motor Trend just didn't put their thinkin' caps on very tightly before test driving the new Camry):
* the 2007 Toyota Camry is a wallowing pig boat in the performance department
* the 2007 Toyota Camry is only a decent deal at the lower trim levels, which don't exemplify quality materials and workmanship in many of their details
* the 2007 Toyota Camry is just too big and heavy
* the 2007 Toyota Camry is inadequately "improved" compared to other vehicles in its class

Don't believe me? Let's look at the Camry a little closer...


Beauty in the Eyes of the Beholders...
The Camry isn't the absolute ugliest thing to ever roll down the highway. After all, the French have pretty much cornered the market on automotive ugly rights with their monstrous deformities that bear the Citroen brand. Not that Americans have much room to talk --- not after having cars like the AMC Pacer.

Nowadays though, Japan has some pretty strong ugly rights themselves, especially with their current crop of Subaru Tribecas --- a car that really does set the pace for Japanese ugliness.

So while Camry is unquestionably ugly, at least it ain't no Tribeca.

On the downside, it seems to borrow some of Tribeca's "ugh" factor of that big, huge, honking, deformed nose. The front of a Camry used to look fairly decent --- up til last year anyway. Now, Toyota's given it a bulge that makes it's nose look more Karl Malden than Cary Grant. Ugh! That "drop down" sheetmetal with the oversized logo reminds me of the way Edsels used to look. Guess a couple Toyota designers must have been driving through the Ozarks, saw an Edsel up on blocks in front of a double-wide, and said "Eureka! That's the look we want on the Camry!"

As if the front grill of the Camry weren't ugly enough, Toyota's also given the front hood an ugly crease down the hood, they've added weird bulges in the side panels in places where cars shouldn't bulge, and they've lifted up the rear deck and added bizarre little edges along the trunk lines. The rear tail lights look mis-aligned with the sheet metal, but I understand it's done on purpose. They remind me of the bug-eyes of that cheesy 60 Japanese show, Ultraman. The tail lights just plain look stupid, but hey, some folks will jump on that Motor Trend bandwagon and ignore their own common sense.

And if you want to talk about cheesy design, look at the gap down there below the trunk lid, where it meets the bumper. Did these guys do that on purpose?? Or is it meant to look like they couldn't figure out how to get the parts to gracefully meet with elegance and pizzazz??

Aside from the raw aesthetics of the Camry, there are two other reasons I don't care for the looks of this vehicle:
1) It's too big. The Camry is basically a decent performer in terms of fuel economy, but I can't help but wonder how much better it could have been if only Toyota wouldn't constantly keep making the sucker bigger, Bigger, and BIGGER. This year, yet again, Toyota cashes in all its efficiency boosts and gives 'em back in size and weight. The changes aren't patently outrageous: it's only a couple inches longer and 1.2 inches wider than last year, it's just the incessant trend towards gargantuan that I abhor. It's also ample justification for my long-standing opinion that the Camry is basically nothing but a fat, wallowing pig-boat of a family sedan. Camry is 2007's version of the 1977 Buicks I scoffed at when I was a kid. "Scoff" is such a wonderful word. Folks just can't scoff enough for me.
2) Look at those cheesy wheel covers. Criminey! They make the flat plastic pie plate covers that cops and taxi drivers have look like freakin' road show beauties! Last time I saw that much plastic, it turned out to be my McDonalds hamburger. Of course Toyota does give you acceptably well-designed alloy wheels when you get up to the high end trim packages, but by the time you deck out a Camry, it's costing so freakin' much that you'd be better served moving up to a Lexus ES and at least getting some status behind you. Ain't no status in a Camry --- not unless you're proud to cruise the Wal-Mart parking lots of America.


Inside the 2007 Camry...
Camry has always been popular as a basic, utilitarian family sedan, and that heritage and focus is obvious when you look at the generally spacious and usable interior. The front seats are basic, with an emphasis more on spacious and commodious accomodation for folks who eat too many Twinkies than on lumbar supporting, side supporting, performance oriented firmness. The edges of the seats seem too floppy for me --- more like the seats on an Oldsmobile than the seats in a BMW. But then again, there is that space factor: plenty of room to scoot your seat up just far enough that Junior can't even think of kicking it as you cruise your way over to soccer practice. The fabric on the lower-end trim packages is unexciting, though it's probably durable and easy to clean (rolling eyes to express utter tedium of such concerns). No lie: it's kind of a checkerboard rough-textured thing with a softer, more velour feeling fabric at those insufficiently firm corners. Yawn.

The back seat has your child seat latches, it's got a usable pull-down center console, and it's got a 60-40 split bench.

I'm a big fan of dashboard ergonomics: the usability and drivability of the car are important to me. On the 2007 Camry, I like the looks of the primary instrument cluster, with the overlapped speedometer and tach, and the larger footprint and more noticeable placement of the speedometer over the tach reflect solid usability considerations. So too does the generally clean and streamlined feel of the control clusters --- not just the primary stack, but also in the center stack, on the steering wheel, and even the door mounted controls. In some ways, the dash reflects some of the clean Teutonic lines that mark the sparsely Teutonic feel of a BMW dashboard. That's a good thing.

The bad thing is how cheap and very un-Toyota-like some of the controls feel. The radio and climate controls are made of flimsy plastic that's not well assembled --- it looks good if you don't touch it, but lay fingers on the controls and you'll be thinking, "Criminey! Did I climb into one of those Dodge econo-boxes by mistake??" This is one of the few Toyotas I've been in that felt like somebody was cutting too many corners in terms of material quality. I am seriously UNimpressed by what I'm seeing inside the cabin of this Camry. I'll tell you one thing though...it's not that way on the high-end trim packages: but on the CE and LE...oh yeah, the cheapness is apparent.

So, while Toyota Camry begins life with its CE-line being only slightly more expensive than a competing Hyundai Sonata, the Sonata starts its quality where Toyota gets it only when you pony up $6-10K more than the Hyundai. Hate to say it, but the Hyundai Sonata has a noticeably better quality interior than Toyota Camry. This is reality speakin', not the Motor Trend love-fest. Drive and compare for yourself, but do so with eyes open, and I think you'll agree. (It's pretty obvious.)

I do like the big honkin' trunk on this car. Lots of room for chilly brewskis. I do believe I could fit at least 8 cases of beer in there. Some folks might want to put suitcases in there, or sacks of groceries --- I suppose they can do that, it is a family car, after all. Unless your family is named "Soprano", then you might want to stuff a dead body in there (and there's plenty of room for that too).


Performance Issues (or, Is This a CAR I'm Drivin' or a Freakin' WINNEBAGO??)
Everybody knows the Toyota Camry is pretty much a non-contender for any driver who really wants a little bit of fun or performance edge to their basic sedan. Toyota does nothing to upgrade that image in 2007. The car handles acceptably well for a mom doing nothing more aggressive than obeying the posted speed limit as she moseys her way to junior's school and then goes and gets her hair done. Camry is good for that kind of driving.

It's very bad if you want to take a turn quickly, or if you want the added performance boost of a 5-speed or 6-speed transmission coupled with the larger engines. Toyota proves its boringness by not even offering an optional manual transmission on anything more interesting than their bottom-of-the-line 4 banger. How dull!

That's the way Toyota seems to prefer it though. After all, if people really wanted a car that performed well, and that felt good to drive, they'd have started off at a BMW or an Acura dealer, not a Toyota dealer.

The road feel of a Camry can best be described as "land yacht". Although it does have a fairly decent turning radius, if you go strictly by the spec sheet, it has no suspension to speak of once you touch the gas even the slightest bit. It's the way you always used to feel in the back seat when Uncle Bud would go around a corner in his Mercury Marquis --- you'd have to hang on to the ceiling straps lest you fall out the window as the thing yawled and rolled like a rowboat in a stiff gale.

Ahhh...the memories of Uncle Bud. He'd have loved the Toyota Camry...it has exactly the same kind of road dynamic!

In more technical terms, you'd say that the Camry doesn't have a good road feel. There's no sense of "connection" to the road. The steering feels soft and delicate. There's no tightness or decisiveness about it.

After all my previous diatribes about the propensity of some car companies to over-horsepower their cars, I'd be a hypocrite to criticize Toyota for having one of the weaker entry-level powerplants in this mid-size sedan market. At 158 horsepower and 161 foot pounds of torque, their basic 4-cylinder engine is actually what I consider "right sized" for this size and weight of a car. It feels smooth and competent, and it accelerates adequately for pretty much every typical family driver's needs. You'll get your doors blown off by any 200-hp plus tire burner, no questions asked, but do you really care? If you don't --- and you shouldn't --- then the Camry will be fine.

Don't get me wrong --- the Camry is a perfectly utilitarian vehicle. The power is adequate, if unexceptional, and the response is likewise adequate, though thoroughly unspirited. It's a passionless car for a driver who just wants to pick up the kids and a few sacks of groceries --- not a car for a driver who loves to drive. And of course, the Camry has a reputation for delivering dependable transportation for tens of years and hundreds of thousands of miles, and that's not a thing you want to scoff at.


Bottom Line...
I don't care for the 2007 Toyota Camry. Don't want one. Wouldn't buy one. Next to an Accord, the Camry is a poor performing, frumpy little witch, with that ugly nose with a logo-encrusted wart on it: the Accord looks better and delivers better performance. As much as I love me some Hondas though, the real out-performer in this car class is the Hyundai Sonata, which delivers better performance, better styling, better quality interior, a better warranty, and a far lower price than an equivalently equipped Camry. THAT is the car I'd pick as "Car of the Year" if I were Motor Trend, and if I just had to give the nod to a mid-size family sedan.

As always though, your mileage may vary, and you're entitled to your own opinions, just like the guys at Motor Trend. (Even if they're wrong.)