Nov 29: Toyota, is that you?

When one thinks of Toyota, one usually thinks of excellent quality, but sleep inspiring styling and a sofa on wheels ride. The best selling car in the US and it has been for the past few years is the Camry.......

Everything boring A to B transportation should be. This car declares loud and clear, that its driver doesn't like cars, but being a necessity, they might as well get great quality. Now, admittedly this pic is a couple of Camry designs back, but you get the picture.

But something is happening within the bowels of Toyota, the largest selling car company in the world. The first inkling was their reworking of the Lexus luxury line. Controversial front end design grafted on to an origami sculpture like body, but at least they now stand out and everyone knows that is a Lexus. And to top it off, Lexus is making steps towards being a driver's car, even getting ready to introduce a range topping sports model, the LF-FC (catchy name??)........

Those of us who love cars, had hoped that Toyota was planning to get away from their sleepy designs, when they introduced the still great looking, Venza, eight years ago.......

It pains me to see this model going away in 2017 with no replacement planned. In my opinion, everything was right about this crossover. Then, when Toyota showed a concept design of the next Corolla, the world's best selling car, well, we were overjoyed  - Toyota was finally getting with the program.....

What style conscious young man or woman wouldn't want to go clubbing in this car? Heck, I even wondered if I'd fit in it (just joking). Honda was finally getting their design act together, so it looked like Toyota was also going to up their game. Oh, we could dream, but this is what ended up on the showroom floor.........

Yawn. So I wouldn't be going in for a Corolla fitting just yet (joking, yet again), based on this reliable but ho-hum looking car.

Now with crossovers of all sizes pushing cars to the back of the dealers' display space and everyone trying to fill every single niche, what does Toyota show us? Remember this concept?

Supposedly a preview of a new small suv, the C-HR to compete with Honda's HR-V (no, I don't get the name similarity either). The key word here is supposedly, since Toyota had teased us before, only to drop a much less interesting design into their product line. So what has happened this time? Drum roll, please.....

No kidding, this is the way the actual C-HR will appear when it arrives in Toyota showrooms within a few months. Looks like the Lexus designers snuck into the Toyota studios, when the other guys weren't looking. Not everyone's design cup of tea, but no interesting design ever is. I like it and it doesn't have a strange face like do the Lexus models.

So, is this the tip of the proverbial iceberg? Can we expect Toyota's bread and butter cars to up their style game as well? Very good questions. When you have a best seller like the Camry, you don't really want to go all space age, but at least have a great looking design. Hey, it works for Hyundai.

This will be another stay tuned moment.

Until next time.......