Toyota Camry XLE AWD
Does anyone not know what a Camry looks like? (This is a stock photo; the weather was too dreary for local photography.) Updates for 2023 include a trim package called Nightshade, three new colors and upgrades such as standard automatic high beams.
Two-tone upholstery helps cheer up any car’s interior, and the Camry’s switchgear and systems feel substantial and are easy to use.
Does anyone not know what a Camry looks like? (This is a stock photo; the weather was too dreary for local photography.) Updates for 2023 include a trim package called Nightshade, three new colors and upgrades such as standard automatic high beams.
Two-tone upholstery helps cheer up any car’s interior, and the Camry’s switchgear and systems feel substantial and are easy to use.
The MSRP of our sample Camry is $37,654—which, until galloping inflation and the chip shortage arrived, was about the average sticker price of a new car sold in our country. (It’s now climbed to more than $40,000.) “Average,” it turns out, is an excellent descriptor for this car, too.
“Vanilla” also comes to mind—as in, bland, unexceptional, so smooth as to be nearly unnoticeable. Yet vanilla, by a wide margin, is the most popular flavor of ice cream. And Toyota claims that, for 20 years now, the Camry has been the most popular—that is, best-selling—sedan in America. They must be doing something right.
Petrolheads want their cars to be exciting, challenging, fun and rewarding to drive. But the rest of the world, the great majority of people, want their cars to be safe, sane, comfortable and utterly reliable. The Camry is their poster car. Toyota calls it “the cure for the common commute.”
Seeking to be all things to all commuters, Toyota offers 13 versions of Camry, from the basic $25,845 LE to the $36,270 XSE V6, with gas-electric hybrids in each of the four trim levels, optional all-wheel drive, and three top-tier models with 6-cylinder, 301-horsepower engines, including a TRD (Toyota Racing Development) “performance” Camry.
Our XLE AWD has the standard 4-cylinder motor, rated for 202 horsepower and 182 pound-feet of torque, and an equally unremarkable 6-speed automatic transmission. No, it’s not fast, but it gets the job done, and efficiently, too. Few roomy, well-equipped four-door cars can deliver 34 MPG on the highway without turbocharging, diesel power, electricity or an unpleasant continuously variable transmission.
Our Camry also has a strong selection of the amenities that help make a tedious daily commute more comfortable and secure. The XLE comes with Toyota’s Safety Sense 2.5 package, with pedestrian detection, emergency braking assistance, all-speeds adaptive cruise control, lane-following, lane-departure alert and steering correction, and automatic high beams. It also came with rear-crossing traffic alert, blind-spot monitors and a backup camera.
On top of this, $6,200 in options includes a color head-up display that shows the speed limit as well as navigation directions, ventilated front seats (heat is standard), heated steering wheel, Toyota’s premium touchscreen (with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto), a bird’s-eye-view camera, a better stereo and a power tilt and slide moonroof that extends back over the rear seats. Sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic will at least be comfortable.
And when the traffic clears, the XLE is, if not dynamic, competent. Once it reaches cruising speed, it stays there easily and responds well to inputs from the operator. Bland though it may be, vanilla is tasty, after all.
