If you are sitting next to a 2015 Toyota Camry at a stoplight and decide to take him on, you'd better think twice if you have an XK8, and if you have an XKR, it had better be running up to snuff.

2015 Toyota Camry V-6 First Drive - Motor Trend

As the V-6 powertrain is unchanged for 2015, and because Toyota says the new car weighs about the same as the old one, it's more than likely the performance will also be unchanged. The last V-6 Camry we tested, a 2012 SE model, weighed 3320 pounds and hit 60 mph in 5.8 seconds (0.2 second slower than a 2015 Ford Mustang EcoBoost). It needed only 14.2 seconds to finish the quarter-mile and did so at 100.6 mph


Edited for clarification:
It looks like my point was not well made and is being missed.

I have/had no intention to indicate that anyone on this forum should or would prefer to have a Camry because it is a little faster from 0-60 than our cars are.

I just find it somewhat remarkable at how much technology and engineering have come in the last ten or so years when I see that Toyota is making a Camry that has sub 6 second 0-60 times.

 

While my drag racing days are long gone, I still make it a point to remember that taking on "a family car" is a bad idea. If you win, so what? If you lose...

I just enjoy mine for the GT car it is and appreciate that I get more compliments than any of the Camrys (or Accords, Mazdas, etc.).

 

Having 2 Toyotas and now my second XK8, the only thing I can say is that whenever I valet park either Toyota it's never parked right out front when I return to get my car...

 

It looks like my point was not well made and is being missed.

I have/had no intention to indicate that anyone on this forum should or would prefer to have a Camry because it is a little faster from 0-60 than our cars are.

I just find it somewhat remarkable at how much technology and engineering have come in the last ten or so years when I see that Toyota is making a Camry that has sub 6 second 0-60 times.

 

still a boring old Toyota no matter how you cut it. NEVER will look timeless like our XK's

 

"I have/had no intention to indicate that anyone on this forum should or would prefer to have a Camry because it is a little faster from 0-60 than our cars are."

 

I travel for my work and I rent cars almost every week.
The only rental car I ever took back, because I absolutly hated it, was a Camry...

 

True--300hp is not as big a deal these days as it was in the 1990s. Worse is the fact that our cars are heavy compared with many 4-door family sedans.

This is somewhat tangential but the other trend I have noticed is with cars considered muscle cars these days versus compared with back in the 1970s. In the 1970s a muscle car was typically a hopped up version of something that was kind of basic, hence the average Joe could usually afford to get the ranking muscle car of the day.

These days what are the ranking muscle cars are models that were NEVER considered as such a few years ago--like Mercedes and BMW and Audi. The souped up AMG Mercedes and M-model BMW's are now the street racers similar to what used to be aimed at the Joe street-racer back in the 1970s, except now you need to be making in the high six figures to afford these.


Doug

 

Point taken and you are correct in your observation. Like many things the bar continues to be raised. I type this reply on a 2lb. Mac laptop that is slightly larger in footprint than a sheet of paper and about 1/4 inch thick. The first computer I ever touched was larger than my desk and had less speed and memory.

 

Right, the original "muscle cars" were the intermediate sized American cars where the manufacturers took the large displacement engines out out of the full sized models and crammed them into the smaller cars. The Pontiac GTO pretty much started the modern (at that time) trend that everyone else followed. The Road Runner opened up a different area in the whole Muscle Car era by making them very cheap comparatively. The basic Road Runner had a cheap vinyl bench seat in the front and a rubber mat on the floor, instead of any carpeting. It did have a high performance 383 as standard equipment with a four speed and some upgraded suspension pieces. Of course, you could go for a 440 or even a 426 Hemi. Chevy had the 396 Chevelles and Olds had the 442 and The Hurst Olds. Ford had the Torino with up to a 429. Nowdays, you have a Challenger and a Charger with 707 hp on the street and Mustangs and Camaros with 500-600+ hp, but they are not cheap.

In my mind, the Camry was always sort of like a soccer mom's car when she only had one or two kids, before she had to move up to a minivan to carry the whole team around. I was just taken aback when I read that they are now making Camrys that run 0-60 under five seconds, which, quite honestly, those muscle cars of the old days with their huge engines could not do unless they were set up by someone who knew what they were doing. It is just amazing to me how much power they keep being able to wring out of those relatively small displacement naturally aspirated engines.

 

Yeah--I am an old "Roadrunner" guy. Had a 1970 383 but it was the "higher end" model with the special bucket seats and an automatic. It was considered fast for the time but I am pretty sure many Asian and German sedans these days are faster. But, again, in the 1970s the muscle cars were aimed at "bad boys" who had a few extra bucks to spend. These days the "bad boys" have to be making big bucks. Whenever I see a "hotrodded" Mercedes or BMW it just seems incongruous.

 

I believe that we may have covered that ground some time a few years ago. I had a 340 Duster which was a pretty good match for a Road Runner. I graduated from high school in 1971, so I was a teenager through the 1960's muscle car era. There was a drag strip in the small town I grew up in and my brother in law's best friend was the son of the Parish (County) Chief Detective who worked traffic control there as an auxiliary cop and I would go there with him and get in free and have access to the entire place as all of the other cops came to know that I was with him. We would spend time in the staging lanes with all of the drivers who were waiting for their race to come up and sometimes even go out near the starting line when the funny cars or top fuel dragsters would race. All of that was sort of like Heaven for a teenage boy in the late sixties.

 

I have had a few fast cars over the years but, ironically, never took any of them to a dragstrip or road course. You would have enjoyed the recent Mopar event I went to put on by Chrysler Performance West. This happens twice a year at a park that is walking distance from my house and the stuff you see there is amazing. Last fall there was some gal who was the original owner of a Limelight Green Superbird and last week there was a guy who had his original 1968 Charger. But I digress--sorry to hijack the thread.

Doug

 

When they introduced the 314 Dodge Demon back in the early 70's they were quick, but not necessarily fast. However, in the first year of production they were placed into the wrong NHRA class bracket. I had a buddy who cleaned up until they changed him into a higher bracket.

He was even protested once or twice, but it was bone-stock and passed inspection every time.

 

I would much rather be behind a Camry in a my Xk8 than in front of it in a Camry.

 

This.

It's remarkable what an Accord or Camry can do nowadays but... I'm still in a supercharged V8 Jaguar convertible. Not the point.

Waft on.

 

Perhaps, you did not read this post in the thread. If you had, you might understand the context of the thread.



"I have/had no intention to indicate that anyone on this forum should or would prefer to have a Camry because it is a little faster from 0-60 than our cars are."

 

"I have/had no intention to indicate that anyone on this forum should or would prefer to have a Camry because it is a little faster from 0-60 than our cars are."

Clearly, you must have missed this post.

Waft on.

 

I regularly use my Uncles '06 Avalon with less thank 18k miles just to keep it running fine. The 3.5 does have a lot of punch. I've noticed Toyota cranks up the injectors to give the engine the punch you feel. I also note this is why the fuel mileage is so poor and I am not an aggressive driver. My XK8 gets better mileage. I drive my XK8 for my pure enjoyment. No need to prove anything to anyone else but me. If I want to tear up the road I'll do so in my Mrs. '15 Buick GS Turbo or my 420 HP 8 speed Denali. Rich

 

If you ever want to feel true shame, drive a newer Corvette, or Porsche against a little Japanese shitbox, called a WRX. I don't know what these cars have, other than AWD, and a huge fart can exhaust, but there is a kid in town looking for high end sports cars to eat alive. I told him my XK8 was a luxury car, and he said fine ride, but I have seen this kid eat Bahnstormers, like AMG Mercedes, and M series BMWs. I have not seen a Ferrari go down, other than a 308 series, but this car looks and sounds like an animal.....Mike