The Return of Bland
The 9th generation Toyota Camry rolls into showrooms this fall to…very little fanfare, relatively-speaking. Nevermind that it’s the bread-and-butter model for the world’s biggest carmaker in their biggest market. Most enthusiasts will respond with a ho-hum and flip to the five-way supercar comparo on the next page.
So why should we care? Simple: We’ll be surrounded by them on the commute home, and those of us who value eye-pleasing design would like to have something nice to look at through the windshield and in the rear view mirror. With that in mind, I’d like to draw attention to a fairly significant change with the new Camry: The taillight area.
Contrast the rear of the new Camry (shown at top) with that of the previous generation (shown above). The profoundly awkward contrasting angle between the bottom of the taillights and top of the bumper lip has been excised, the taillights’ “puffiness” is gone and the transition between the top of the rear fenders and the trunklid has been smoothed out. Small matters to most, but as a designer, those little details just made me…uneasy every time I’d see one at the supermarket parking lot, and I’m relieved they’ve resolved the issues. Even if the remainder of the styling is completely anodyne.