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’.
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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.
The trade-off for this frugality in Toyota hybrids of old has tended to be a fairly sterile, binary driving experience, but the Camry is further proof that the firm is chipping away at this compromise. It is not the last word in driver involvement, but based on a short drive on mixed roads near Barcelona, the Camry is comfortable, refined cruising transport - and while its size and weight (around 1.7 tonnes) mean it’s not quite as light on its feet as, say, a punchy petrol 508, it is predictable enough for you to lean on it in corners.
The steering has a satisfying heft to it, and it responds in a quick, linear fashion as you move away from the straight ahead. And the body control is strong for a car that does such a good job of dialling out road imperfections; there’s not much roll to speak of in twistier sections of road.
The powertrain still has the potential to send revs skyrocketing if you suddenly require it to get a move on - but even this is a less frequent occurrence than Toyota hybrids of old. At a steady 70mph, you’ll just notice the gauge on the left side of the instrument panel dropping down into ‘Eco’ to indicate that the petrol motor has been switched off - and the manner in which the system is able to kick it back in is impressively smooth. Even when the engine is running at motorway speeds, it’s not intrusive, and road noise is also nicely suppressed.
The Toyota’s wheelbase is 2,825mm - longer than the Insignia’s but 25mm down on a Mondeo’s. In practical terms there’s space for four six-footers to sit in reasonable comfort, with plenty of knee and headroom.
The boot is a decent size too, at 524 litres (a Mondeo hatch manages 541) - although it’s worth remembering that the Camry is a saloon, not a hatchback, so even if you do lower the rear seats, the size of item could well be limited by the aperture into the load bay. No estate version of the car is planned, incidentally; there aren’t enough potential sales to justify the development bill.
Toyota is still thrashing out final specifications but given the firm’s modest targets for Camry sales in the UK, we’d expect it to focus on higher-end editions. That’s likely to mean a similar interior finish to our test car, which had double-stitched, padded materials in almost all the right places and a logical, if slightly button-heavy layout in the middle of the facia. It feels a match for Mondeo or Insignia, although the likes of the VW Passat and the forthcoming Peugeot 508 may offer a slightly more upmarket feel.
The infotainment system in our car was undergoing fine-tuning but it looks to us like a crisp, responsive touchscreen that could be compromised by a glossy front coating that breeds reflections. It’ll be interesting to see, too, if this is finally a Toyota that at least offers the potential for the user to bypass the firm’s own systems and switch to Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. There’s no sign of it just yet.
- Model: Toyota Camry 2.5 Hybrid
- Price: £26,000 (est)
- Engine: 2.5-litre, 4cyl, petrol and electric hybrid drive
- Power: 215bhp (total system)
- Transmission: CVT automatic, front-wheel drive
- 0-62mph: 8.3 seconds
- Top speed: 112mph
- Economy/CO2: 66mpg (est)/100g/km (est)
- On sale: Early 2019
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