Toyota's been gettin' saucy lately with its cars—could the Camry be getting a major glow-up? The current Toyota Camry is coming due for replacement, not coincidentally soon after its crosstown rival the Honda Accord received a major redesign for 2023. Normally, news of an impending new Camry might elicit yawns, or sheer indifference. After all, amongst midsize sedans, a typically stuffy, practical bunch, the Toyota has long been the safe, boring choice. Well, it has been, until recently—today's Camry is easily the most adventurously styled, sportily tuned of the breed, a trend we think will continue into the next-generation Camry due for 2024 or 2025.
For an idea of what to expect from the next Camry, let's take a look at the segment it'll be shaped by. Sedans (and cars, generally) are losing ground to trucks and SUVs, fast. Numerous mainstays of the midsize sedan space have faded from the marketplace, from Ford's Fusion to the Mazda 6, and more are set to expire soon. But look at those sedans that have held on, the Hyundai Sonata, Kia K5 (neé Optima), Nissan Altima, and the Honda Accord.
These four-doors have pivoted to louder, more shouty styling and adopted sportier meins in a bid to keep buyers' attention. After all, one must assume anyone still buying a car instead of an SUV or truck is doing so because, at least in part, they want something carlike and fun to drive. Styling that's low, wide, and un-SUV helps signal their desires to others. In this crucible of form and performance crushing the kind of staid function midsize sedans once thrived on, prepare for the Camry to get wilder. Here's what to expect: Design
Setting aside the pressures sedans face to stand out more, there are pressures within Toyota that could push the Camry into newly expressive territory. President and CEO Akio Toyoda is on a performance kick of late, personally ushering hot products such as the GR86 and GR Supra sports cars, as well as the turbocharged GR Corolla rally rocket, into existence. His influence can be felt across the Toyota car lineup, which has steadily pivoted toward sportier styling and better chassis tuning. You'll notice a lot more SE and XSE variants of new Toyotas that previously lacked any sporting pretense, including on the new Prius and the Corolla hybrid families. More traditional, conservative L, LE, and XLE trims still exist, too, but even those are visually amped up by Toyota standards.
In fact, the Prius is a decent harbinger of things to come for the Camry. That hybrid has long been strange and unappealing to look at, but have you seen the latest one? It's certifiably unhinged for a Prius, futuristic and (yes) attractive. To arrive at our design rendering for the 2024 Camry, we injected a fair amount of Prius inspiration, notably in the C-shaped LED headlight surrounds, lower-bumper intakes, and the rakish profile. We fed imagery of the Prius into an AI image generator, along with photos of the current Camry and new Crown sedan, then worked off what was spat out.
And that is how we arrived at the low-slung, aggressive sedan pictured here. There are the Prius-like details in the face, for sure, but that long wheelbase, hunched roofline, and clean flank surfacing is what really brings the drama. To boost the visuals that much more, we applied a subtle body kit similar to that offered on today's Camry TRD model, with blacked-out trim and red pinstriping for good measure.
Things get slightly less realistic in back, if you can believe it, as those deep faux bumper intakes; wide taillights modeled after the GR86 sports car's units; and license plate nacelle perched above a diffuser would have jarring practical implications. For example, the next Camry may be spicier, but it still needs a realistic trunk opening. And does a Camry need a ducktail spoiler? Couldn't hurt! But where are the tailpipes...
