2007 Toyota Camry Review

The front end is fresh, with sharp points, curving cut-lines and entertaining surface planes. The hood dips broadly across the middle, pushing visual heft out over the bold front fenders. The grille wears a Toyota emblem prominently above softly slanted, horizontal slats. The one-piece fascia blends all the diverse elements into a smooth aero-look that's several steps away from the pro forma, overly inoffensive, just-another-midsize-car-from-Japan look.

The side aspect is less fashionable, somewhat bulky looking with a high beltline, symmetrical windows and square doors, graced with a barely discernible character line running through flush-mounted door handles. The wheel openings are circular, which on a car with a lower profile might suggest sporty intentions, but on the Camry draws attention to the vast expanse of sheet metal between them and instead whispers, quot;sedate.quot; An odd, but increasingly popular, miniaturized rip on the BMW 7 Series squared-off trunk lid finishes the side profile.

That bustle-like hump gives the trunk's trailing edge a minimalist aero-lip that invites the inference it's there to reduce rear lift at high speeds. The SE boosts this inference with an honest spoiler. An oversize Toyota emblem perches atop the license plate recess. Proud taillight lenses mirror the headlights' outline, angling down and inward across the trunk lid seam to end in sharp points that stylistically mesh with the curved lower lip of the license plate indent, again closely tracing the pattern set by the headlights and grille. The bumper wraps around the back end, seamlessly capping the corners beneath the taillights and sweeping over and under to a soft, horizontal indentation that, on the V6-equipped models, finishes in cutouts on each end for the chrome-tipped, dual exhausts.