January 19: Avalon - a pleasant surprise?

The anticipation was palatable. Forget about the monster sales and profits of the new pick-ups that Chev and Ram would be introducing. Forget about all those cute teaser ads that Ram dropped on the motoring press. No sir, the big talk at Detroit was about Toyota's redesigned Avalon.

Of course, I'm funnin' with you. The Avalon, that old folks' mobile sofa, has been with us for years and with each passing redesign, it has become less relevant to an suv loving North American public. Not that the Avalon's sales would indicate anything like that fact, as in 2016 (a poor sales year for it), it sold just under fifty thousand copies. Now that is surprising, since seeing one is not an everyday occurrence.

The Avalon is a funny beast. Priced right up against and overlapping the luxury models from Audi, BMW and others, but with zero cache'. Never figured out why those buyers of this big Toyota didn't simply take the next step and get a Lexus. What have they been seeing that I haven't?

Back in 1994, Toyota dropped the Avalon on an unsuspecting public........

......starting an Avalon tradition, but retaining the Toyota tradition of boring cars. Big and nondescript, but a strong seller right out of the box. Following up this model with a variety of equally unassuming Avalons......

  

Nothing to email home about, but still reliably knocking off sales in the seventy and eighty thousand range each and every year. Sales that for a big sedan in a diminishing big sedan market were quite impressive. Hey, nothing like Camry's over four hundred thousand yearly numbers, but for a car that was simply a larger derivative of the Camry platform, a sure winner profit wise.

Which brings us to this year's Detroit show and the intro of a redesigned Avalon. I thought, "Are you kidding? Who needs it?", that is until I started to do a bit of research. Hand it to Toyota, they must know what fifty thousand people want. And finally, they have made the Avalon interesting looking (full disclosure - the front of the last one was also interesting in a strange and unpleasant way).

Following the new and quite drastically changed Camry, this new Avalon is quite a looker. It might even handle, but let's not get too carried away, as grampa ain't cruising the city streets looking to humble some Civic R driving young dude.

Before I get too verbose praising the look of this new BIG Toyota, let's not forget this company's love affair with the look of the Terminator, as they have embraced this ugly front end in all their new cars.......

Whew! Distastefully distinctive. But as the rest of this car is so good looking, let's give Toyota a pass on that weird shnooze.

Say what you want about Toyota, they seldom put a foot wrong and with this new Avalon, they are showing that they too can hire designers who take pride in what they put on paper or a CAD program and subsequently into metal.

So get your order in and show your Camry owning neighbour that you have outdone them once again.

Until next time......