Except ... except ... there's nothing really
interesting about the Camry. No Camrys really capture my imagination, but the 1990-1994 Camry is, in my mind, clearly
the most boring car ever made. The whole car, the look, the driving experience, is so generic that I half-expect to see a Camry in white with a big barcode on the side.
When referring to a Camry as an appliance, Rob the SVX Guy has it right. The Camry is suited to be used and immediately forgotten, with all the emotional involvement of a Whirlpool dishwasher or a can opener. This Camry is so anonymous that it could have gone through the Witness Protection Program. I'm convinced that the faceless apparatchiks in George Orwell's 1984 would have driven Camrys had they had the option. Judging by the Camry's wild popularity, they're not alone.
For me, though, and anybody else who wants to savor the personality of a well-engineered machine, to be emotionally stimulated by the art and inspiration that can be wrapped up in a risk-taking design, a stirring engine, or a purposeful interior, the Camry is a frightening affront--a least-common-denominator insult to anybody who wants more than rote transportation from their vehicle.
What really kills the Camry in my mind is that one needn't settle for a lack of soul if the goal is to have a reliable Japanese family sedan. The
Honda Accord,
Nissan Maxima,
Nissan Altima,
Mazda 6/626, Subaru Legacy, Mitsubishi Galant ... all of these cars can match the Camry for reliability and utility while still giving the driver
something to enjoy.
It is a mark of my irrationality that I would prefer something like a
Fiat Spider to a Camry. In every quantifiable way, the Camry is superior. Actually, it's
crushingly superior. But there's nothing rational about Car Lust. Every fiber of my being longs for a Fiat Spider. Every fiber of my being rebels at the Camry.
The only non-boring Camry of this generation? The wagon--and that only because it's so hideous that it sticks in the mind. These photos are actually from the
Toyota Scepter Wikipedia page; that Japanese-market name, at least, is sorta cool.
Before I really get into today's post, I want to revisit the definition of Car Disgust and explain anew why these cars are worthy of my disgust. It's not because they're all awful cars, although many are. It's because, generally speaking, they're awful and boring. If given the choice between a solid car that's unbelievably boring, and a car whose very incompetence makes it interesting, I'll take the latter every time. It doesn't make any sense, but that's my particular cross to bear.
Steaming Pile on June 18, 2008 at 08:42 AM
Also consider that the name "Camry" is utterly meaningless. It is a conglomeration of syllables put together at random and run by the marketing department. Uh, actually, it's Japanese for "crown," which was the name of an early Toyota luxury sedan, and a recurring theme of various Toyota products including the Corolla.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Crown
Mochi Mochi on June 18, 2008 at 08:58 AM
I'm crushed - my Sentra B14 beaten by a Camry - oh the shame! But I guess the Camry does have a history of unrelenting blandness. I accede to Chris and Rob. As previously noted they are almost identical in appearance. But it does not appear that the Sentra had the interminable reliability of the Camry. Especially the self-destructing SE-R.
I guess the next question to ponder is "WHY"? Why make something so fully and completely uninteresting. These cars are the equivalent of "florescent overhead lighting". But if you go to all the trouble to build a car, wouldn't you put "something" into it? Design Devils why do you create such nondescript soul-sucking horrors?!
Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame on June 18, 2008 at 09:14 AM
In the context of a friend (who loves her Mazda) telling me about her cousin (who loves his Mazda), I noted that you never hear about someone loving their Toyota. They are always just--barely!--good enough.
I guess Toyota feels like there's no point wasting time/money/effort in being excellent at anything, when good enough is, well, good enough.
If boring.
Steaming Pile on June 18, 2008 at 09:54 AM
@Nate - I guess uncompromising build quality that is second to none doesn't count. There's a reason the Corolla is the world's best selling car of all time.
Chris Hafner on June 18, 2008 at 09:56 AM
Yeah, Toyotas might be dull, but they do make for excellent transportation, especially for people who don't care about cars. I would recommend one without hesitation to a friend who needs a reliable car.
Rob the SVX guy on June 18, 2008 at 10:19 AM
Mochi, as an industrial designer, I can assure you it isn't the designers fault. I can also assure you the blame lies within marketing/business majors, and focus groups. They like to water down EVERYTHING, cut costs all the time, and produce the most mediocre crap possible. This is why I hate people in marketing. They suck the life, ideas, and originality out of products, companies, and people's enthusiasm.
Chris: Thought of one more that just exemplifies total disregard for anything remotely interesting:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3d/1997-99_Chevrolet_Malibu.jpg/800px-1997-99_Chevrolet_Malibu.jpg
In my eyes, it pretty much equals the Camry. Totally generic everything. I hate it. I'd rather have a bicycle.
Chris Hafner on June 18, 2008 at 10:26 AM
Rob - great point about the 1997-1999 Malibu. Not only was it an awful car, but it was completely bland. I can't think of it as boring, though, because it angers me as a blasphemy of a proud name.
Now, when it was renamed the "Chevrolet Classic" ... it's hard to get much more boring than that.
Rob the SVX guy on June 18, 2008 at 10:47 AM
Yeah, for sure man, I remember being pissed off about the name as well. It looks NOTHING like a malibu.
Anthony Cagle on June 18, 2008 at 11:05 AM
Isn't it kind of too reliable to be boring? But yes, boring. I also thought of a similar generation of Mazda Protege. And the Chevy above was also something I'd considered since it's not only completely dull but nothing to get excited about reliability-wise either.
My idea of a boring car is one that is mechanically unsound enough that it will give you just enough life to not make you exactly regret buying it, but not too much that you won't care when you have to dump it.
Mochi Mochi on June 18, 2008 at 11:21 AM
Rob I agree. Marketing and Business departments are usually the culprits. But at the same time, the world is full of bad, lazy, and conformist designers. These people either lack talent and vision or have been beaten down my the Mar/Biz groups - which is sad. As a designer I usually go to the heart of the problem and attack the source - entrenched corporate cultures that breed banality and appeal to the lowest common denominator. But the truth is, there's always a designer who wields the pen, stylus, or mouse. And mediocre designers usually attract mediocre designers once they have established a foot hold. Design driven and selected by focus groups invariably leads to depressed designers, mediocre designs, and high sales. Oh well - so in the end things like the Camry exist because of a conformist collaboration between Marketing, Design, Corporations, and Consumers.
To add insult to injury I was assaulted by legions of Camrys today. Every car that cut me off was either an older or newer version of a Camry. They vaguely inserted their slowly roaming presence at exactly the wrong time, over and over again.
The question is this... how was it that Toyota was able to produce the uniquely odd 1st and 3rd gen MR2s. These cars appear to have speed, odd ball styling, and they handle well - they even had superchargers. They got some great press and won awards - and sadly are now no longer produced. I understand that Toyota contracted Lotus to help them with the 1st gen. It appears that the MR2 effort had something to do with Toyota trying to find a way to appeal to a younger demographic. Looks like their tactic to solve that problem involved dropping the MR2 and starting a new division called Scion - which revels in a mystique of non-conformity as evidenced by the campaign for the "little deviant" - which heralded end of the lovely little XB and the arrival of disappointingly large XD.
Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame on June 18, 2008 at 11:44 AM
@steamingpile
Toyota was "2nd to none" only long enough to create that perception. Then they quickly settled for being "2nd to Honda" for quality/reliability, and now have even slipped to "2nd to Hyundai" for quality/reliability. Which sounds worse than it is.
Even Lexus isn't known for quality/reliability as much as outstanding custumer service and pampering these days.
Not that they are bad quality or unreliable. They are just (barely!) good enough to maintain the perception of reliability they created in the mid/late-80s.
One thing is becoming painfully clear: it is more difficult to craft consensus on boring cars than it is on interesting cars.
David Colborne on June 18, 2008 at 05:07 PM
Ah, the Malibu... my significant other has one of those. It's a little too unreliable to be boring. Sorry, but when you get a class action suit against your car, that makes it surprisingly interesting, even if it looks like some rental cars inbred with each other.
I'll go with the Camry. That's an excellent call right there. I mean, I didn't even think of this car when the subject first came up - it never even crossed its mind. Why? Not because it's not boring - because it never occurred to me to even THINK about a Toyota Camry, period, in any capacity. It's like thinking about air or water; you only think about them when something is horribly wrong.
Anthony Cagle on June 18, 2008 at 07:14 PM
"One thing is becoming painfully clear: it is more difficult to craft consensus on boring cars than it is on interesting cars."
When I first typed the idea out I was thinking that it might be one of those paradoxical questions: No one could think of the most boring car ever because it would, by definition, be forgettable.
Chris Hafner on June 18, 2008 at 08:27 PM
David Colborne: "it never occurred to me to even THINK about a Toyota Camry, period, in any capacity. It's like thinking about air or water; you only think about them when something is horribly wrong."
That's a great line.
Brian on June 18, 2008 at 09:17 PM
Hi. I have to pretty much disagree that the Camry is the most boring, because if you look at the performance of some of the top models, well... I just don't see what you get with a BMW that you don't get with a 24 valve Camry. That's not to say that a vast majority of them are totally boring appliance cars, as stated, but the ones with performance could be seen as sleeper sedans, a-la the Taurus SHO, which is certainly not boring. Actually I'm about to give up beer just to get an old crappy one. However, if you're judging on looks alone, the Camry is definitely very boring. So if it were a choice between a freeking hot Camry and a BMW for twice as much, I'd take the BMW. Any more than that though, and it's me in a freekin' Camry.
Roy Mustang on June 19, 2008 at 01:14 AM
Thank God most car consumers aren't like you.
Rob the SVX guy on June 19, 2008 at 07:37 AM
Roy: Why?
Steaming Pile on June 19, 2008 at 07:53 AM
@Rob - Roy probably sells Mustangs for a living. The idea of cars as appliances runs counter to his self-interest.
David Colborne on June 19, 2008 at 10:19 AM
I was thinking about this post last night when I was walking through the parking lot in front of my apartment complex. I saw something that I hadn't seen in a while... and, at that point, I realized that the Camry, though it may be the most boring car, does not have that title without dispute.
Why? Because I saw a Toyota Echo.
The Toyota Echo is a pretty bland car - so bland, in fact, that nobody bought them. They were small, gutless, looked like a toaster, drove like one, and yet, even though few of them were sold, they still blend into traffic like a Navy SEAL blends into his surroundings. Think about that for a minute. Most cars, when few are sold, are unique, if for no better reason than they're relatively rare. Think about a Renault Alliance or one of those Peugeot wagons - if you saw one on the road, you'd think, "Huh, I haven't seen one of those in a while," right? But, if you saw an Echo, would you think anything? Would you even notice it? Would you even recognize it?
That, ladies and gentlemen, is true boring. Even if there was only one Echo left on the face of the Earth, it would STILL blend into traffic as if it never existed. That, folks, is pretty damn dull.
Rob the SVX guy on June 19, 2008 at 11:18 AM
The echo isn't as boring as a camry, purely because of it's comical proportions. It's small, not very long, and very tall. It gives it this awkward prepubescent quality, and at least to me, they usually stick out like a 13yr old boy trying to look mature.
I think the Camry is way way way more boring.
Chris B. on June 19, 2008 at 11:43 AM
Oh no! I actually drove one of these snoozemobiles for several years in high school and college. Thanks for nothing Dad!
mochi mochi on June 19, 2008 at 12:32 PM
The Echo is not an exciting car - but you can immediately see that it is different from other cars on the road. It's oddly disproportionate styling makes it standout. The truly bland never stand out - the truly bland disappears from your memory. They can't be differentiated from other makes. That's what's interesting about the Camry and things like the Sentra - they look so similar you have a hard time identifying them or telling them apart - or remembering any notable detail.
Ian on June 19, 2008 at 12:49 PM
Plus, the Echo had that Roxy package that added those weird stripes down the side. I think Rob and mochi mochi nailed it; it's a boring car, but it's quirky enough that it's nowhere near as boring as a Camry.
Finn McCool on June 19, 2008 at 03:41 PM
I have a plain vanilla 2007 Camry LE. It gets 25 mpg every tank, goes 0-60 in less than 7 seconds, and is governor limited to 143 miles per hour. It's comfortable and quiet. The handling is solid, not twitchy enough to be exciting.
I've had a lot of cars and when I think that this mass market sedan is faster than the performance sports cars I lusted for as a kid (Mercedes 300SL, Jaguar xk140MC, etc.)
all I can do is fantasize about owning the Camry in 1960....
Mochi Mochi on June 19, 2008 at 07:38 PM
In comparison to the Sentra B14 the 90-94 Camry looks like a Vegas show girl.
Finn McCool - I'm with you. The base model Sentra B14 is the most bland and forgettable looking car in existence. If measured purely on aesthetics, form, and detail it trounces ALL competition for the most banal styling of all time.
I do allow that variants of the Sentra and newer models deviate from this. But I don't think this is a question of line history. This is a question of specific model. I'm looking at it from an aesthetic/styling perspective. And pound for pound there's nothing more forgettable than the Sentra B14.
I get the inclusion of durability and reliability. But that's something that can't be inferred by looking at the vehicle in question. Clearly there are more Camrys than Sentras, but the Sentra can easily disguise itself as a Camry or practically any other bland car (including the Escort sedan). In doing this shape shifting feat of banal neutrality it succeeds in acquiring ALL the banality points of other cars, the Camry included.
I believe the only reason that Chris targeted the Camry was that the Sentra is so banal, it performed a memory reset. It has ultra-mundane styling is ultra-forgettable - it is a car that one can not remain in memory for more than 15seconds. Look at it. Turn away. 15 seconds later you wont remember you were looking at it at all, you wont remember it even existed.
The only way I am able to remember the Sentra B14 is that I have its name and image tattooed on my body. The only way I can be sure I have ever seen one is a collection of polaroids that I have taken of myself standing next to Sentras or looking at them. My memory of the car is actually blank - I don't actually remember ever seeing one. Were it not for these mnemonic devices I would never know that I had ever seen one, or that the car actually existed.