Toyota Camry 2002 Review

The new-look Toyota Camry is more than just a car. It's also a reflection of a stronger youth push at Brand T and a plan to bring younger customers into the Camry family.

Toyota Australia spent big on the car and decided very early that it needed to be a body and soul makeover.

So the basic shape is much more angular and aggressive than any previous Camry, while the cabins have been tweaked to make them more stylish and luxurious.

"The Camry is always going to be a damn good car- that's its advantage," says Danny Lazzari, a colour and trim specialist who helped lead the local design team.

"Camry has always offered a value package, but with New Camry we've taken it well away from a commodity. There is a lot more style.

"The single biggest difference is that the car is sportier. Compared with the previous Camry, the new model is much more distinctive - a theme we've tried to replicate on the exterior as well as the interior."

Lazzari is only 34, although he has been at Toyota Australia for 12 years, and says his age has helped with the latest design brief.

He is a real fan of the Sportivo Camry, which has been given a separate model line-up for the first time.

"Our objective with the Camry was to get younger people to appreciate the car. Our current customers are older so we needed to lower our buyer demographics," he says.

"With Sportivo, we will get the age demographic even lower. However, we must also be aware of our current loyal and trusting owners. Camry has one of the strongest groups of repeat buyers in the industry."

The Australian development team began their work with a Camry designed as a world car, and with plenty of scope for local tweaking and tuning.

The Sportivo, the most aggressive and youthful model in the 2002 line-up, is the most obvious Australian development.

"The whole Camry Sportivo package is outstanding both inside and out. I think we've hit it right on the head," says Lazzari.

"The Sportivo seat is the feature I am most satisfied with in the new Camry. The seat works well and it looks really good with the suede side bolsters."

Because Lazzari specialises in colour and trim, he knows the value of the paintwork on the new Camry.

"If you look at the new car against the old one, the body gives the colours a totally different character - even white," he says.

"The body is sharper and crisper. The highlights are much more defined, rather than being soft and nondescript.

"A classic example is red. On the superseded car the demand for red was decreasing, but we expect it to rise on the new Camry. The new colours we've added - Platinum, Racing green, Cascade blue and Pacific blue - are much more youthful. They have a lot more mica and the angles on the body assist in highlighting the character of the colours.

"From an overall paint colour point of view the Platinum and Pacific blue have been well received. Platinum is proving a very popular colour with customers in the Middle East as well as Australia, so we're happy that it's working well internationally."

Inside the Camry, Lazzari again emphasises the modern colour tunings.

"We've gone for more contrast, especially on the Sportivo," he says. "We have a darker grey crash pad and door uppers, while retaining the lighter grey on the lower half of the interior.

"There are a lot of design details happening with consumer products that you now see in the new Camry - painted metallic finishes and satin chrome. People are comfortable with the finishes they like at home also being used in their cars." Lazzari says the lag between consumer products and cars is decreasing. It used to be four to five years but now it's only one or two.

"The same thing happens with fabrics," he says. "If you look at house interiors they are now generally monochromatic, with texture and three-dimensional effects. Fashion has moved away from florals and prints.

"The emphasis is on the contrast level, rather than the colour itself. We are looking at tone ahead of colour." On the new Camry the design work extended all the way down to badges and graphics, which are new for 2002.

"We created new graphics for the new names. Altise, particularly, I'm very proud of that graphic," Lazzari says.

"There is a lot of motion in the designs. When we took the concepts to Japan they were really impressed with our proposals.

"That gave Toyota Japan the confidence to let Toyota Australia design the badges as well as all the trims for the Middle East."

Toyota Australia develops and builds the Camry for the booming export market in the Middle East.