“There’s a reason a Lexus costs 40,000 dollars. People really need to ask why? It’s simply insane- how they’re engineered and the DAQ systems they offer”

-Dr. Tammy Donahue, Biomedical engineering and Mechanical Engineering professor, Colorado State University Mech 231

Micheline Maynard was an author who successfully predicted Detroit’s 2008 economic collapse and bankruptcy, due to the advent of cars like Lexus which was formulative in Toyota’s innovation to be able to build the amazing 1992 Camry. A car which would bankrupt the corporation at it’s market-dumped prices, but was build-able by leveraging with it’s Lexus ES300 sibling. These cars remain regarded as the pinnacle of automotive engineering even to this day. Still, every 1992 Camry sold out the door at midsize-car prices cost Toyota about -2,000 dollars loss in profit. And today, buying a profit making gen 3 Camry would be equivelant to buying a car for 75,000-80,000 dollars.

“All the attention up until then had been on the big sedan, which Toyota decided to call the Ls400. But when it came time to unveil the Lexus lineup in Detroit, the LS arrived with a smaller sibling, the ES250. Illingworth’s nervousness about an entirely new franchise selling just one car, and the emergence of Honda’s Acura luxury brand in 1985, prompted Toyota to add another vehicle to the Lexus lineup. As a placeholer, it took the 1988 Camry and transformed it into a Lexus, primarily with wood grain trim and leather seats and a higher price. If there were doubts that Toyota could build a luxury sedan, there was even more sceptisism about the ES250. Who would pay 22,000 for a tarted-up Camry, critics said, when they could get the Toyota version for only 13,500? Moreover, wouldn’t the transformed Camry suffer by comparison to the all new LS400? Toyota was sensitive to that kind of criticism, and almost as soon as the ES250 arrived, it promised that there would be a replacement in the near future. And it gave Toyota some practie on experimenting with the Camry, which would prove valuable down the line. The experience had a tremendous impact on the development of the 1992 Camry, which became known, to Toyota’s delight, as “mini-Lexus”.

The project got under way even as the first of the prior-generation Camrys were being built in Gerogetown. The original Camry had been designed to provide more space to buyers who had outgrown the Corolla. Now it was time for the next generation Camry to grow, too. The end result ranks as one of the most gracious, comfortable cars that Toyota ever built, particularly so because of what it learned with Lexus. The advertising theme, “We just couldn’t leave well enough alone” seemed apt. The Camry shared a list of elements with it’s Lexus sibling, which was renamed the ES300 for 1992, starting with a V-6 engine (optional on the Camry) and size. Both cars grew in length and width. Each used the same material for the firewall between the engine and the passenger compartment; each had the same sound-deadening fabric; and each used similar supports beneath the engine, to give it steadiness and smoothness while accelerating.

Where features might be too expensive to offer on the Camry alone, Toyota was able to swing it because it was leveraging them across two models. The primary difference was a unique, slightly stiffer suspension on the ES300, which added 200 pounds to its weight and gave it more of a performance car feel. The ES also had standard antilock brakes, which were optional on the Camry. But the differences were minute, and to many people, the Camry seemed like a steal. Even if buyers didn’t upgrade to the V-6, the Camry had a nice, basic 145-hp 2.2 Liter four cylinder engine that was as peppy as many of the V-6s offered by Detroit. And the car was pretty, with it’s slightly rounded roof and its soft lines, reminiscent of those on the LS400. Though it became one of the car’s hallmarks, the design was not what Toyota engineers in Japan had originally planned for the car.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Yf...

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