In our country Toyota Camry enjoys special love and popularity among car lovers, and for good reason. Reliability, comfort, rich options is what bribes Camry today, but let's remember how it all began and consider the first model, which was not exactly called Camry.
Toyota Celica Camry in version with 2-liter engine
In the late '70s, the bubble in the Japanese economy, just beginning to burst, because the demand for large, powerful and expensive cars has not yet formed properly. The market is as compact, but at the same time more status than the Carina already produced at the time, and that is how the car was positioned first generation, which went into production in December 1979, and in January the following year already went on sale under the name Toyota Celica Camry.
At that time, according to the tradition of naming automobiles Toyota, executive class models received names playing off or consonant with the names of the attributes of power, so Camry - is an English-language transcription of the Japanese word か ん む り, which translates as "crown". The prefix Celica, also in the name of the new car for a reason, the Camry was based on the A40 platform and in fact was a four-wheel sedan based on a coupe.
There was an option to order a two-tone body paint
Toyota Celica Camry in 1.8 XT trim
Stylistically, the Camry borrowed some elements from the Celica XX: the three-section T-shaped grille and the light-alloy wheels. The rest of the exterior was similar to the Carina, but looked more modern. The rich interior trim on the higher trims and a wide range of equipment emphasized the status character of the model. The XT was equipped with air conditioning, power sunroof, electric mirrors, original cassette recorder with equalizer (!), electronic dashboard, heated rear window, trunk release button and radio. The radio was separate from the radio and was located above the dashboard air vents.
The interior of the Celica Camry
Despite its good looks and plentiful equipment, the sales of the Camry failed, selling little more than 100,000 cars, due to its lack of impressive performance. Seeing the familiar word Celica in the name, buyers expected to find a powerful engine under the hood, but Toyota only installed two engines: a frankly weak 1.6 liter 12T-U with 88 hp and a 1.8 liter 13T-U with 94 hp, which also can't be called fast. They tried to correct this marketing mistake by installing a more powerful and technically advanced double camshaft 18R-GEU engine rated at 135 hp (designated as GT DOHC version), which boosted sales slightly, but less than expected.
The Toyota Celica Camry was discontinued after only two years. The failure of the first generation forced the company to be more serious about developing a second-generation model, which got rid of the Celica prefix and became front-wheel drive.
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