Car Of The Year: Toyota Camry

Not much of a surprise for me and perhaps for dozens of other car and vehicle aficionados. Sure, the Toyota Motor Corporation's Toyota Camry has once again been recognized to be quite a remarkable car. This time, the recognition comes from the Motor Trend magazine and it gave the Toyota Camry the Car of the Year award for 2007.

It was sure not just any kind of competition. You see, the Toyota Camry was up against various car models. In fact, it had to go through close scrutiny and it had some other twenty seven other vehicle models to compete with. Yes, the Toyota Camry was up against other vehicles from various auto makers like General Motors, Nissan, and Honda.

According to Motor Trend, as part of its recognition for such a reliable and trusted vehicle, it has also honored all of the vehicles under the Toyota Camry name for the model year 2007. The list of Toyota Camry versions for 2007 even includes a hybrid vehicle that runs on gasoline and electricity. Angus MacKenzie is the editor in chief of Motor Trend and in a statement he delivered a couple of days back, he says, "Creating an innovative, engaging automobile with broad mainstream appeal is one of the toughest tasks facing any automaker. The Camry is the one car rival automakers all wish they could build."

As on the Toyota Motor Corporation's end, it was Mike Michels, the spokesperson for the company, who shared the company's view: "It's hard to quantify the effect on sales, but the Motor Trend award has a lot of corollary benefits. This really energizes the sales operation, the dealers, and for internal morale it's a wonderful thing." Toyota is also the creator of other vehicle models like the Toyota Corolla and also of vehicle products like Toyota T100 body parts.

So what was the Toyota Camry up against? Well, the list of contenders that the Toyota Camry had to deal with included the Saturn Aura which is a sedan from GM. Also, some vehicles from the Nissan line also competed against the Toyota Camry. These include the sedans Nissan Altima, Nissan Sentra, and the Infiniti G35.