Toyota tweaks Camry's design to counter Hyundai

In terms of traditional leader and traditional challenger actions, their positions have been switched

Toyota Motor is making rare styling changes in the Camry sedan just halfway into the car's usual design cycle, a sign the automaker is eager to stem gains made by Hyundai Motor's Sonata, which also is being reworked for 2015.

The latest Camry and Sonata models will make an appearance at the New York International Auto Show this week, before joining the mid-size sedan market fray. Toyota, the world's largest carmaker, is looking to extend the Camry's 12-year run as the top-selling US car, while Hyundai is confident enough to tone down the curving lines from the breakthrough version of Sonata that reached the US in 2010.

"If you think of it in terms of traditional leader and traditional challenger actions, their positions are switched," Eric Noble, president of industry consultant CarLab, says. "What we've had the last two years is Toyota being put in the challenger position, trying to regain ground, in no small part because of Hyundai." Mainstream family sedans - the refreshed Chevy Cruze, Ford Focus and Volkswagen Jetta - are in the spotlight this week at the New York show, which is more often associated with high-end brands.

Toyoda's Priorities
Akio Toyoda, chief executive officer of Toyota, has made styling and performance priorities across the carmaker's model lines. Making major changes midway through the life cycle of Camry, redesigned in 2011, is unprecedented for a car that is purchased more for value and durability than looks.

The refreshed Camry "will challenge conventional expectations of a mid-cycle model change," the company had said last month, without elaborating.

Goodbye Swoopy
Hyundai, South Korea's largest automaker, debuted the new Sonata in Seoul last month. Breaking with a swoopy exterior characterised by the deeply-stamped body panels of Hyundai's so-called Fluidic Sculpture design approach, the new Sonata appears to tone down many of the car's current highlights, which it had previously used to win US market share. "We can say with certainty that Fluidic Sculpture 2.0 has a lot less 'fluid,'" Steve Siler, a reviewer for Car and Driver magazine, says of the 2015 Sonata.

The choice to shift to a more conservative look "definitely runs a risk," says Jessica Caldwell, an industry analyst for Edmunds.com. "Hyundai is a challenger brand and design is a big part of what caught the public's attention," Caldwell says.

Toyota has targeted sales of at least 400,000 Camrys this year, in line with the model's volume in 2012 and 2013. Deliveries in the US in the first quarter totaled 94,283, down 6.5 per cent from a year earlier, according to Autodata.

Nissan's Altima has proven to be Camry's toughest challenger this year, raising deliveries of the mid-size car 2.7 per cent to a best-ever 89,285 in the first quarter. Honda Motor's Accord had a 10 per cent drop to 79,188.

While Sonata's US volume, down 15 per cent in the quarter to 40,253, is not close to that of the Camry, Accord or Altima, the car's style change in 2010 made it an industry heavyweight, Noble says: "Hyundai, not in volume terms but in attitudinal terms, really became the segment leader". "What they did really has resulted in forcing Toyota out of a defensive position, where instead of just trying to hold market share, they have to challenge and innovate," he says.