It's weird seeing a second late-90s Camry at this mall! My grandparents used to have a Camry like this, and I'm sure I rode in it to the Rainforest Cafe at some point when I was little and they lived right up the hill.
It's weird seeing a second late-90s Camry at this mall! My grandparents used to have a Camry like this, and I'm sure I rode in it to the Rainforest Cafe at some point when I was little and they lived right up the hill.
While seeing an XV20 Camry at a Nordstorm here in the 2020s is a bit of a mismatch, those XV20 Camrys are all over the place here in Houston even after almost every competing model from that era have become rare. Some people refer to the XV20 as a true cockroach. No matter how much they seem to squished, they always seem to survive. I'm sure most of the ones on the roads these days have 300k or more miles on them.
ReplyDeleteThe XV20 gained a bit of a poor reputation when they were new. When the XV10 and previous generation Camrys came out, Toyota seemed to be in a bit of an arms race to prove how nice of a car they could build. By the late 1990s, Toyota's reputation for reliable, well-sorted cars was pretty much already solidified and it seemed they prioritized volume, and thus price competitiveness, over an image arms race and so they started to cost-cut on certain features the XV10 Camry had like triple-seal windows, completely soft-touch dashboards, and such. The simplification of the XV20 did nothing to hurt the reliability of the car. If anything, it might have helped as the XV20 was more durable than the XV10 even. We had an XV10 and, admittedly, it did have some mechanical problems, though maybe that was because it was a very early model from when the XV10s just came out.
The competing 6th Generation Honda Accord was very popular in the XV20's day, but you'll see a lot more XV20s on the road now than those Accords. Those Accords were known to have automatic transmission problems, especially with the V6, and they just generally needed more specialized maintenance. I actually see more 2nd Generation Nissan Altimas around here these days than Accords, which is quite something because the Altima sold far worse than the Accord did back then! I'm sure there are probably some 6th Generation Accords still buzzing around the Pacific Northwest, but they're probably ones with manual transmissions.
Speaking of manual transmissions, and given the econoboxes in the other photo, there is a report that Nissan will continue to sell the Versa in 2026 even given the previous rumors/plans to cancel the model after model year 2025. It seems the model, along with the Sentra, have a strong increase in sales recently. However, the manual transmission Versa will not be offered in 2026, according to rumors. I suppose it was good that YouTube user Vwestlife got his manual Versa when he could!
I don't see all that many of these older Camries around here any longer, but then again, I don't see all that many newer Camries either! I guess that's because people around here aren't all that into sedans, and most of the ones I do see are much cheaper economy cars.
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