I had two initial impressions why I first caught sight of my shiny 2007 Camry rental car.  First of all, the car looked very smart in white and with quite tasteful body work.  Second, the car seemed to be quite big, at least to my eyes.  Not enormous, but of a generous size - something that would be considered large here in the UK.  One thing I can say for certain is that it seemed to be a rather nicer automobile than the Focus that I was expecting to get.  Since we don't have the Camry on sale here in the UK, this was going to be an interesting experience.

 

 

My first drive, as ever was down the highway from Asheville airport to Brevard, and it was very quickly clear that the Camry is a very comfortable and quiet car when cruising.  I didn't really get a chance to test out the acceleration, but when pulling away from a standstill the engine note from the 2.4 litre (158 BHP) engine did not quite seem consistent with the quality of the rest of the car.  A car like this needs a 6- or 8-cylinder engine, though the 4-cylinder engine proved quite adequate when cruising.

 

 

As I hinted above, the Camry was extremely well built, with no squeaks or rattles or anything like that to annoy the driver or passengers.  The car spent a lot of its time driving up and down mountain roads and some dirt tracks, and it always felt sure-footed and with good grip.  Of course, we didn't push the car anywhere near its limits, but the way the car behaved inspired a lot of confidence for difficult driving conditions.  The automatic transmission was very smooth and the gear changes were imperceptible.

 

 

I did at one stage give the car full throttle from a standstill, just to see what the 4-cylinder engine could give me in terms of performance.  I was disappointed, and came to the conclusion that this car is intended for cruising and not tearing away from traffic lights.  Fuel consumption was a disappointing 23 MPG overall, though that can be attributed to the amount of time the car spent driving up mountains and hillside roads.  Overall, I liked this car.  It looked good, was very comfortable and well-built, and provided you don't like traffic light races, is more than up to the job.  I would buy one.