Every car has its definitive year. Whether it be the Chevrolet Corvette, the Ford Mustang, or yes, even the ubiquitous Toyota Camry, 10.2 million of which have been sold since 1983, every car has its year. For the Camry, that year was 1992. With son-of-Lexus styling, a clear sense of purpose and a parent company that had hit its stride as the purveyor of faultlessly reliable family transportation devices, the Camry got its legs in 1992. It's a car that even your mom is likely to remember, even if she never owned one herself. The Camry you see here represents the closest Toyota has come to emulating the magic formula that made the 1992 model the stuff of legends. Compared to the 2014 model, some 2000 of the car's 6,000 parts are new, most of them involving things you can see or touch (on the outside, for example, only the roof carries over from 2014). It's not a full redesign, but nevertheless it's a stunning development considering the predecessor upon which it's based only survived two model years. That's a testament to both the hyper-competitive nature of the family sedan segment and the lukewarm critical response that the outgoing car garnered. But that's in the past now – after driving this 2015 model, we suspect the new car's changes will be thorough enough to continue pulling in new customers by the hundreds of thousands each year for the foreseeable future. For starters, it looks great. Photos perhaps overemphasize the gaping, Avalon-inspired maw, but the Camry's sculpted and elongated body – 1.7 inches longer than its predecessor – gives it a sense of grace it hasn't had since the aforementioned 1992 model. Swoopy new headlamps walk the line between pretty and predatory, and hash marks running down the cheeks containing LED running lamps on some models, add a bit of edge. Out back is a remarkably clean decklid/bumper situation, including a tasteful spoiler on certain models. The new-for-15 XSE model (seen here in V6 form) brings monochromatic paint, blacked-out exterior details, and sexy 18-inch black and machined wheels (compared to 16-inch steel wheels/covers on LE models and 17-inchers on LE and SE models). It's a look that attempts to close in on the Mazda 6 in sex appeal, yet isn't so radical that your grandma won't get inside when it's time to take her to church. If there's a weak spot in the design, it's the C-pillar garnish that pretends to be a window but isn't; still, even that deserves some of the credit for making this car look a bit more like the '92.
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