50 Shades of Beige: A Visual History of the Toyota Camry

The Toyota Camry has outsold every other sedan in the United States for 18 years in a row. It's proven as addictive as any popular Netflix series, and people continue to binge on this reliable performer year after year. The Camry evolved extensively over its many decades of sales. From its arrival in 1983 until today, we've seen every iteration of a Camry short of a stretch limo. The second-generation Camry added a wagon. In 1994, a coupe model was launched to increase its sporty appeal. In 1999, the Camry dropped its roof and let loose with the convertible Camry Solara. Today you'll find the Camry name competing in NASCAR, or roaming the streets adorned with TRD badges and packing 301 horsepower. Here's a closer look at how this all too familiar vehicle changed throughout its inconspicuous existence:

Launched late in the 1983 model year, the Camry served as a replacement for the Corona. That compact sedan, along with its smaller sibling, the Corolla, had helped Toyota become the top-selling import brand in the United States in the mid-1970s. Toyota used a new name, Camry—derived from the Japanese word kanmuri, meaning “crown”—to differentiate this new front-wheel-drive four-door sedan from the rear-wheel-drive model it replaced. The company considered its newest creation its first true entry into the compact-car segment, positioning the Camry against vehicles such as the Chevrolet Citation, Ford Tempo, Chrysler’s K-cars, and, of course, the Honda Accord. That last model would go on to become the Camry’s closest rival.

Available in both sedan and liftback body styles, the first-generation Toyota Camry measured 175.6 inches long (for some perspective, that’s 16.5 inches shorter than today’s Camry). It was initially offered with a 2.0-liter fuel-injected single-overhead-cam inline-four engine producing 92 horsepower, mated to either a five-speed manual or a four-speed automatic transmission. A turbo-diesel was added later in the model’s run, but was only a small percentage of total sales. More spacious than the Corona, the Camry quickly gained a hold in the U.S. market, winning over buyers with its comfortable ride and trouble-free reliability. Car and Driver was impressed with the car but hardly thrilled. In our 1983 road test, we called the Camry “a nice, well-behaved four-wheeled valet that will get you where you’re going with no muss, no fuss, and no bother.”

Four short years after the first Camry was introduced, Toyota launched a second-generation model for 1987. The new model boasted more interior space and more variety in the lineup. Although its wheelbase was the same as the first-generation Camry’s, the new car was longer and wider and had a larger trunk. Its more rounded lines also made for better aerodynamics, although the rectilinear three-box-sedan profile remained. A new wagon spinoff used the same 16-valve 2.0-liter four-cylinder as the sedan; its new engine offered 20 more horsepower than before, for a total of 112 hp.

In 1988, Toyota opened a new production facility in Georgetown, Kentucky, to build Camrys for the North American market. Powertrain options also expanded that year. New four-cylinder models were offered with an all-wheel-drive option called All-Trac, which used a center differential to vary torque between the front and rear axles. A 2.5-liter V-6 engine joined the order sheet, serving up 153 horsepower and 155 lb-ft of torque in both the sedan and wagon; it could be paired with either a manual or automatic transmission. Sales continued to rise, cresting the 200,000-per-year mark in the United States for the first time in 1988.

The third-generation Camry that launched for 1992 marked a turning point in the car’s history. For the first time, the American Camry was differentiated from global markets’ versions and used a new wide-body configuration that elevated it from the compact class to the mid-size category. About six inches longer and two inches wider than before, it offered more interior space to go along with its more stylish, curved body lines. The sedan and wagon variants offered two new, more powerful engines: a 2.2-liter four-cylinder and a 3.0-liter V-6. We were hugely impressed with the refinement, quality, and value of the new Camry and named it to our 10Best Cars list in 1992 and 1993, calling it “a benchmark in the building of a mainstream sedan.”

In 1994, Toyota launched a two-door Camry coupe. With the same overall dimensions as the sedan (other than its 0.2-inch-shorter height), it used the same four-cylinder and V-6 engines and was intended as a sportier choice, especially in the racier SE V-6 trim level that was also offered for the sedan. The Camry also received a lighter aluminum-block V-6 with 188 horsepower and improved fuel economy.

The fourth-generation Camry became even more U.S.-centric as Toyota’s Ann Arbor, Michigan, engineering facility was responsible for half of the car’s development. The automaker’s Japan home base picked up the other half of the engineering load. Larger than before, with a two-inch wheelbase stretch, this Camry was nonetheless slightly lighter and less expensive than its predecessor. The two engines, a 2.2-liter inline-four and a 3.0-liter V-6, carried over but with a bit more power for totals of 133 and 194 horsepower. We awarded the Camry V-6 another 10Best Cars award for 1997, and in that year the Camry for the first time became the best-selling car in the United States. It would hold this honor for many years to come.

Reflecting trends in the mid-size segment, the wagon version was dropped for the U.S. market, and the coupe took a hiatus for 1997 and 1998 until the Camry Solara two-door picked up where it left off for the 1999 model year. With its new name and more clearly differentiated styling, the new coupe looked less staid but otherwise shared its mechanicals with the Camry sedan. For 2000, the Solara gained a topless variant. The four-seat convertible set its sights on the popular droptop version of the Chrysler Sebring.

The Camry once again hit a growth spurt, coinciding with a redesign in the early 2000s. The fifth-generation model had a longer wheelbase and was taller than before, with a raised seating position for the driver and front passenger and more legroom for those sitting in the back seats. To go along with the size uptick, the Camry gained a bigger base engine, a 157-hp 2.4-liter four-cylinder. The 3.0-liter V-6 stuck around, although this generation lost the combination of a V-6 and a manual transmission. At least the sporty-ish SE trim level returned to the lineup, having been abandoned for the previous-gen Camry, and for the first time the Toyota was offered with an in-dash navigation system.

The Camry Solara coupe and convertible were redesigned for 2004, following the sedan’s fifth-generation overhaul by a few years. The two-doors’ swoopy new styling was distinctive at best and overwrought at worst, but no one could accuse the pair of looking anything like the sedan. The same year, Toyota extended the Solara’s more powerful 3.3-liter V-6 engine option to the Camry SE sedan.

By the end of the noughts, redesigns of the Camry had became a predictable affair. Each one was bigger, more powerful, and better equipped than before, and the sixth-generation car was no different. When the new Camry arrived in 2007, Toyota promptly sold more examples in the ’07 calendar year than any Camry before, sending 473,108 units to new homes. The base 158-hp 2.4-liter four-cylinder was mostly carryover, but the 3.3-liter V-6 was dropped in favor of an all-new 3.5-liter engine with a whopping 268 horsepower that endowed the Camry with serious speed. We pit one Camry so equipped against a turbocharged all-wheel-drive Subaru WRX in our “Surprise Speed” tournament, and the unassuming Toyota easily kept up, sprinting from zero-to-60 mph in 5.8 seconds and running the quarter-mile in a scant 14.3 seconds at 99 mph.

A Camry hybrid using Toyota’s proven Hybrid Synergy Drive system joined the range for the first time. It promised 40 mpg city at the time (updated EPA testing procedures have since revised that estimate downward to 33 mpg city) along with 187 combined horsepower, the latter number about on par with the base four-cylinder-engine. The Camry Solara coupe and convertible were discontinued for 2009, leaving the Honda Accord coupe as one of the few mid-size, front-wheel-drive two-doors on the market.

A new Camry arrived in 2012 without much fanfare. The styling was new but unexciting, and the powertrains were mostly carryover, other than the hybrid drivetrain, which received updates and improved efficiency numbers. The seventh-generation Camry was the first not to offer a manual transmission; the entire lineup came standard with an automatic transmission. The interior was a touch more spacious and was one of the first Toyotas to offer the brand’s new Entune infotainment system with smartphone connectivity functions. Sales were strong, but a milquetoast response from critics—we placed the Camry fifth out of six mid-size sedans in a 2012 comparison test—prompted Toyota to take action.

An emergency refresh was applied to the Camry for the 2015 model year. Toyota emphasizes that it was much more significant than a typical mid-cycle update, as the roof was the only exterior component left unchanged. The new styling was a bit more daring and the interior was improved, but its predecessor’s aging engines again carried over, and performance didn't radically change. Given the popularity of the SE trim level, Toyota decided to enhance the sportiness factor even more, adding an XSE model that, at least visually, amped things up a bit further.

Expectations for the eighth generation of the Camry ran high when it made its debut at the 2017 Detroit auto show sporting attractive new sheetmetal. The new car transitioned to an all-new platform for the first time in many years, Toyota’s TNGA component set. The renaissance was perfectly timed, as the Camry faced stiff competition from the also-new Honda Accord. Believe it or not, the longtime rivals had never been redesigned for the same model year before, and 2018 was the first instance in which the two sedans were all new at the same time. Although we were highly satisfied with the new Camry’s sharper driving dynamics and its stronger four-cylinder, V-6, and hybrid powertrains, it failed to unseat the Accord from its crushing 10Best Cars winning streak.

For 2020 a Camry TRD sporty model was added with firmer suspension, racer-boy looks, but no power improvements from the 301-hp 3.5-liter V-6 already available in XSE and XLE trims. The spoilers and added aero aren't just there for looks, as the EPA-estimated combined mileage is down 1 mpg from other V-6 Camrys. Camry TRD pricing starts at $31,995, making it the cheapest way to get the Camry with a V-6 by $3960.