Yes, Toyota really did make a Camry convertible

Original story published in Drive on 14 February, 1997

Mothball the cardie, leave the hat at home and don't bother bringing the lawn bowls, dearie, because the new Camry aims to be cool. Or at least this one does.

Unveiled at the Chicago Motor Show this week, Toyota’s Solara concept car hints at the design of a mid-1998 coupe, based on Camry, the cardigan-car.

Though the coupe has yet to see the light of day, Toyota admits that the Solara “conveys many of its design cues and essential dimensions”.

Dubbed a speedster, without due deference to Porsche, the Solara’s cut-down windscreen and svelte styling was a joint design exercise between Calty, Toyota’s California design house, and the Michigan convertible experts ASC.

The 4.8-metre-long Solara uses all-Camry mechanical parts although Toyota is at pains to emphasise it shares “no common sheet metal with the Camry, nor will it share its name”.

Underneath, the DNA is a positive match. From its rolling platform to the front-drive 3.0-litre V6 and four-speed automatic, it is almost identical to the Camry sedan which Toyota will manufacture in Australia from mid-’97.

Toyota says no firm decision has been made on a production future for the Solara convertible but the coupe will definitely be built at Toyota’s Canadian factory in Cambridge, Ontario at the rate of 50,000 a year.

Big though the numbers are for a specialty machine, they don’t justify Toyota’s near $600 million investment in expanding the plant, which currently produces the Corolla for North American consumption. The figures suggest, however, that higher production and exports of the coupe – or a convertible – are part of Toyota’s future strategy.

“We’re still not sure if, or when, a convertible model will be offered,” said Don Esmond, a Toyota vice-president in charge of large car development.

The Solara is significant in that it will be the first to take advantage of the combined talents of Toyota’s North American styling, engineering and manufacturing facilities.

With Toyota Australia already negotiating to import another US designed and built model, the big 1998 Avalon sedan, the coupe may well be on its wish list. The Camry coupe will have genuine four-passenger comfort, Toyota claims.

In a word, yes, although despite the hype around the soft-top, it was actually the coupe version of the Toyota Solara that broke cover first, landing in US dealerships in late 1998. Convertible variants joined the line-up in 2000.

More than just a two-door version of the then current-generation Toyota Camry, the Solara actually enjoyed just a little bit of ‘go’ to match the ‘show’.

Available with either the same 2.2-litre inline four or a 3.0-litre V6 as found in the fourth-generation Camry sedan, albeit with a slight power bump, than Solara earned some decent reviews at launch, lauded for being un-Camry-like despite sharing much of its platform and underpinnings with the staid and conservative sedan.

The 2.2-litre four was good for 101kW and 203Nm while the meatier V6 produced 149kW and 290Nm. Power was sent to the front wheels via either a four-speed automatic transmission or for savvy buyers, a five-speed manual.

And in V6 trim, while not exactly quick, it was certainly faster than its staid four-door donor Camry, 7.1s to 97km/h (60mph) against the sedan’s 7.8s.

As Motor Trend wrote in its review, “for the first time, ‘fun-to-drive’ and ‘Camry’ are not mutually exclusive”.

Buyers wanting more power could option Toyota Racing Development performance upgrades through Toyota dealership. More than just for show (a TRD bodykit was included) the TRD upgrades lowered the ride height, added stiffer shock absorbers and anti-roll bars, larger wheels with sports-focused tyres, performance-focused exhaust system and, for the cherry on top, a supercharger that bumped outputs by 46kW and 73Nm (now 195kW and 363Nm) and slashed the 0-97km/h time to just 5.6 seconds. Hell yeah!

The convertible Solara followed in 2000, tipping the scales at around 115kg heavier than its coupe counterpart thanks to Toyota’s chassis strengthening measures and the addition of a powered soft-top.

As Motor Trend wrote at the time, “the Solara isn't the structurally stiffest convertible on the market. It's fine on smooth pavement, but railroad tracks and potholes will set the body ashiver.”

Performance too wasn’t up to the coupe’s with the US benchmark 0-60mph (0-97km/h) dash taking 8.4 seconds to complete, around 1.3s more than its V6-powered coupe counterpart.

On the road, the Solara convertible garnered praised for its “quiet, creamy ride, though enthusiast drivers will find it too soft” while the 3.0-litre V6 was lauded for its “smooth as silk” demeanour. The standard-fit four-speed automatic was also described as good although “a bit lazy on downshifts”.

Still, despite the minor criticism, as an open-topped boulevard cruiser, the Toyota Solara fit the bill.

A new generation Solara coupe and convertible arrived in 2003 for the 2004 model year. As before, it came with a choice of two engines, the same 2.2-litre inline four from the previous generation and a V6, albeit now displacing 3.3-litres against the older 3.0-litre unit.

Toyota paid particular attention to the convertible too, acknowledging the rigidity problems of the previous generation by stating this second-generation soft-top had been designed and built specifically for that purpose.

And while contemporary reports suggested that the improvements were noticeable on smooth road surfaces, scrappier roads still highlighted the inherent lack of rigidity that only a soft-top can bring.
And performance wasn’t exactly a shining light either. As Car and Driver noted in its 2004 review, the Toyota Solara convertible did “not a sporting bone in its body."

There was a lot to like, however, with a new five-speed automatic transmission an improvement over the older four-speed unit, while cabin comfort and space was top-notch for the segment.

And the 3.3-litre V6 represented a step up in terms of performance too, its improved outputs of 175kW and 325Nm shaving over a second off the Solara’s 0-60mph sprint time now sitting at 7.3s.

But perhaps the Solara’s biggest praise was saved for its inherent Toyota-ness, Motor Trend noting in its review that “in a market that rewards build quality, reliability, and smooth, quiet operation, the Solara Convertible goes down easy”.

The Solara remained in production into 2008, the coupe the first to meet its end in June, the convertible following in December. No definite production numbers were ever released, although at its peak around 50,000 convertibles were sold annually. By the end of production in 2008 that number had dropped to around 20,000.

And as a historical footnote, the Solara remains the last mass-produced convertible made by Toyota.

Rob Margeit is an award-winning Australian motoring journalist and editor who has been writing about cars and motorsport for over 25 years. A former editor of Australian Auto Action, Rob’s work has also appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Wheels, Motor Magazine, Street Machine and Top Gear Australia. Rob’s current rides include a 1996 Mercedes-Benz E-Class and a 2000 Honda HR-V Sport.

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