I spend a great number of Time to walk across the line in the great American car graveyards to search Interesting stories about cars to tell. In recent years, I have observed each of the thousands upon thousands Toyota Camrys I see, looking for one thing: extremely rare gearshift levers five-speed manual transmission. Although Toyota USA offers a number of five floors camry are from first ’83s You see, over the course of the 2012 model year, the overlap between the “Americans who want a new Camry” and the “Americans willing to drive manual transmissions” groupings became small starting in the early 1990s. . Last year, I managed to spot a hand-fitted 1997 Camry and six months later, a year 2000. Then I’m still stuck in the last year of the 20th century (it was 2000, not 1999) on my three-pedal Camry quest… until a few weeks ago in Northern California, when I stumbled across this devastating 2001 CE in Vintage Pearl Red.
One of the main reasons automatons became more popular here in the 1990s was a simple one: cost of purchase. If you want a new 1985 Camry Deluxe sedan with an automatic, it’ll cost you an extra $800 for an $8,948 car (about $2,105 for a $23,574 car in 2021) bones, or mussels). That’s a nearly 9% addition to the factory cost, and the relative cost of the two-pedal rig has increased as the car’s sticker price has dropped.
By 2000, a manually-equipped Camry CE started at $17,675 while its manual transmission counterpart cost $18,475 (about $29,105 and $30,420 today). That’s still the $800 automatic ($1,315 in 2021), but it only adds 2.75% to the car’s cost. At that price, why would any Camry rider have to manage to juggle a Big Gulp, a cell phone and a gearshift in stop-and-go traffic?
It’s worth noting that the original buyer of this vehicle paid an extra $778 for the Optional Value Pack #first, including air conditioner (Not standard equipment on the base-level CE Camry), power windows and power rearview mirrors. This shows that buyers not only want the The Camry is as cheap as it can be, but instead is the rare type of driver who prefers a manual transmission but still wants a pointless sedan that can last thousands of miles.
Car buyers in the US can already step into a Toyota agency in 2001 and bought a new Camry LE with a 5-speed manual transmission and a 3.0-liter V6 with 200 hp. That the car was supposed to be a recreational vehicle, but it cost $22,385 (about $36,860 now). On top of that, such car buyers will be drawn to the sleeker (and cheaper) Solara coupe. Meanwhile, a new 2001 BMW car 325i sedan 5 manual transmission for only 26,990 USD and rear-wheel drive, not to mention Volkswagen Passat 2001 GLS V6 sedan and its 190 hp for $24,050. If any of you have ever seen a 21st century Camry LE with a V6/manual setup, please let me know.
I always thought Toyota’s CE trim level stood for Low Cost Edition, but in reality it means Classic Version (someone pry off the CE badge on this car, but the version tag says it’s CE). Most of the 2000s Camry CEs you’ll find will start out life as fleet cars, but a few (if any) fleet buyers will opt for anything with a manual transmission and therefore this vehicle was purchased by an ordinary civilian buyer.
The digital odometer means we’ll never know how many kilometers this car has gone when it makes its last tow truck to this place, but I bet it’s been running fine on those days. year 200,000 and possibly beyond. I’ll continue to look for a three-pedal Camry ’02 or more on my future scrap yard explorations, but don’t hold my breath for a hand-built 2012 model coming soon.
Camry TV in the US market advertisement less interesting as the decades go by.
In Japan, the Camry ’01 ads are a bit more humorous.
