Posted 08.30.2010

Executive wheels: Toyota’s still got it

The Camry hybrid is its latest measure of excellence

By Jeff Rundles

2011 TOYOTA CAMRY HYBRID

I know, I know, Toyota has had a tough year and the bad news keeps coming and everyone is pretty much down on Toyota. Not me. Many people know I am an auto reviewer and they like to tell me their car stories - how much they like this, how much they hate that, how the Americans are getting it - and lately it has been venting at Toyota. I guess people just like to see the mighty fall; it makes their meager lives more interesting.

The truth is, however, we - all of us in the American motoring public - owe Toyota, and to a lesser degree its Japanese counterpart Honda, an enormous debt of gratitude. I know that many people blame the demise of the American automobile industry on the Japanese, but the fact is that the Americans simply refused to respond. I have said many times that if General Motors had built the Toyota Corolla or its equivalent back in the 1970s, the company would have never collapsed. Toyota and Honda - even if it took 40 years - taught the American automobile business how to design and manufacture cars, and how to deal with organized labor in an efficient manner. Almost every car on the market today is pretty nice, which wasn't true in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, and it is in large measure because of Toyota. On that basis it could be argued that, ultimately, Toyota saved the U.S. carmaking business.

I bring this up to defend Toyota - in spite of the company's troubles over the last couple of years, I believe they still make the best fleet of cars in the world, and trust me, I have driven most of the general consumer cars over the last 27 years and I'm in a position to make this statement with some authority.

A grand example of this superiority is the 2011 Toyota Camry Hybrid 4-door sedan. The basic, gas-powered Camry has been manufactured since 1980 (in the U.S. since 1982), and I believe it is the most copied automobile ever made. Look at the competition a year or two after each of the 8 generations of Camrys offered for sale and you'll see cars from Japanese, Korean, European and American manufacturers that, by design, look just like the Camry. Still, the best of the lot remains the original, the Camry.

Then there's this Hybrid model. It became available with the 2006 model year, with the introduction of the latest version of the Camry, the XV40, and it is made in the U.S. at the firm's plant in Kentucky. Toyota, of course, pioneered mass-produced hybrids models with the Prius, introduced in the United States in 2001 to much acclaim.

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