Few Surprises
I knew there had to be a rationale behind every other car on the street being a Camry. I could reason it out for myself, that it wasn't
likely to be its dashing good looks, though it has improved immeasurably over the years, appearing almost as good as a, er, Lexus ES. So what's the charm? It's a car. It has four wheels, four doors, a roof (in this case a sunroof), and a thrifty little engine that does everything it's told to do. What else? It's got a trunk the size of my kitchen, a shiny chrome grille, alloy wheels and it doesn't drink its weight in gas every week.
But what does it have that other cars don't, because surely there are other cars out there that can check all of the items on the list above? True, but the Camry's got a reputation that so many other cars would give their left rear tires for: the most reliable vehicle this side of a GO train (apologies to anyone who's ever been stuck on a broken-down GO train, but I never have, so I'm sticking with that analogy, and yet more apologies to the rest of Canada that has no idea what a GO train is).
Though
there are challengers working overtime to knock the Camry off its perch (long time rival Honda Accord and upstart Hyundai Sonata being just two), no other car will soon supplant the Camry for dependability in peoples' collective perception, as the Camry has had years to entrench itself as the king of reliability, having spent years locked in as Consumer Reports top pick and also taking into account Toyota's lock on JD Power's corporate dependability rankings. Granted, the Sonata has bumped off every rival in Consumer Reports perch for North America's best car, and even domestics like a Chevrolet Malibu and Pontiac Grand Prix outstrip it in recent Initial Quality Studies for entry-level midsize cars, but we're talking reputation here, and no car can hang its hat on a reputation for reliability like the Camry can.
I knew there had to be a rationale behind every other car on the street being a Camry. I could reason it out for myself, that it wasn't
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| I knew there had to be a rationale behind every other car on the street being a Camry. (Photo: Jonathan Yarkony, Canadian Auto Press) |
But what does it have that other cars don't, because surely there are other cars out there that can check all of the items on the list above? True, but the Camry's got a reputation that so many other cars would give their left rear tires for: the most reliable vehicle this side of a GO train (apologies to anyone who's ever been stuck on a broken-down GO train, but I never have, so I'm sticking with that analogy, and yet more apologies to the rest of Canada that has no idea what a GO train is).
Though
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| Though there are challengers working overtime to knock the Camry off its perch, no other car will soon supplant it for dependability in peoples' collective perception. (Photo: Jonathan Yarkony, Canadian Auto Press) |