Toyota Guns For More U.S. Share With Kentucky Built Camry

DETROIT, Jan 9, 2006; Chang-Ran Kim writing for Reuters reported that Toyota Motor Corp. unveiled on Monday a remodeled version of its flagship Camry sedan, aiming to capture an even broader swath of buyers in the United States with America's best-selling passenger car.

Toyota, widely expected to unseat General Motors Corp. as the world's top seller of automobiles in a year or two, is counting on sales of the sixth-generation Camry to drive around 10 percent growth next year in the United States, its most lucrative market.

With 431,703 sold last year, the model accounted for one in every five cars the automaker sold in the United States.

Japan's top automaker did not disclose its pricing or sales volume target, but said it expected the new incarnation to go after more style-conscious consumers with a sportier design characterized by a lower roofline, wider stance and shorter overhangs.

"We know that Camry owners love their Camrys," said Don Esmond, senior vice president at Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A.

"But as happy as Camry owners are, they feel their car is ordinary. From people who owned Camrys in the past we hear words like vanilla, bread-and-butter and Dad's car," he said at the unveiling at the North American International Auto Show here.

In an effort to attract a growing population of younger buyers, Toyota has been trying to shed its image of building reliable but bland cars. It created the separate Scion brand two years ago to target the so-called Generation Y demographic for younger buyers.

Currently, most Camry buyers are in their late 40s to early 50s, Esmond said.

Toyota said the new Camry will also come equipped with an improved engine and innovative -- if not quirky -- features, including upholstery coated with a substance extracted from silkworm cocoons that Toyota says has "natural healing properties."

"Maybe one day, we might even see doctors prescribing long trips in a Camry," Esmond said. "You never know."

The remodeled version will for the first time be available with a hybrid system, a move that will bring Toyota a step closer to establishing the powertrain as a mainstream alternative for fuel-saving vehicles.

Toyota said it would aim to sell 4,000 units of the Kentucky-built Camry hybrids every month in the United States, although one official said the auto maker had room to build twice that when capacity in Japan was included.

The 2.4-liter hybrid-powered Camry, which will go on sale a few months after the launch of the standard version in early March, will be as powerful as the current 3.0-liter V6 engine and goes from zero to 60 miles an hour in less than 9 seconds, Toyota said. With an estimated fuel efficiency of 43 miles per gallon in city driving and 37 mpg on the highway, the car has a range of more than 600 miles per tank, the company said.

The Camry will be wrestling for sales in a competitive segment that also includes Honda Motor Co.'s (7267.T: Quote, Profile, Research) Accord and Nissan Motor Co.'s Altima.

"The Camry is strategically a very important model for us," Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Chairman Yukitoshi Funo told reporters on Sunday. "But we're not worried about its prospects at all."