The animated sedan made an appearance in a Toyota marketing video about buying versus leasing.
Over the weekend, Toyota USA shared a video on YouTube discussing the differences between leasing and financing in order to help customers decide which is best for them. The video uses stop-motion animation with model cars to break down the pros and cons, however, it also might have accidentally shown off the facelifted Toyota Camry set to debut in 2024. If accurate, it’s easy to see that it shares its front-end design with the new Prius.
About 48 seconds into the video, you see a little book titled “The Amazing Toyota.” On its cover is what looks to be a Toyota Camry, as it has the overall body shape of the current model including the same side mirrors and proportions. However, it has headlights very similar to that of the stylish new Prius. While the face isn’t exactly the same, it has similar wraparound headlights at both ends and connects to the grille in between them.
Along with the new headlights, it gets a massive lower front grille and what looks to be a more sculpted hood. Could this be the 2024 Toyota Camry? And if so, is this teaser accidental?
The car in question is only on the screen for exactly two seconds, and it never returns, so it seems Toyota didn’t want it up there for long. Plus, someone had to animate that exact car into the ad, which was then seen by countless internal eyeballs before making it to YouTube. If that facelifted Camry wasn’t supposed to be there, someone would have noticed. So I’m thinking this is an intentional teaser of the upcoming 2024 Camry facelift.
Could it be a different car? It’s possible, as there is still the Toyota Crown. However, the body of this teaser car doesn’t look like the Crown’s, and the Crown has only been on sale in the U.S. for what feels like 15 minutes, which means it isn’t due for a facelift just yet. The Camry could use a facelift and giving it similar styling to the impressive new Prius seems like a wise way to do it. Sure, it could be an overseas model or it could even be some fictional car some graphic designer came up with. However, those options do seem unlikely.
There’s no word on when the new Camry will be officially revealed but if Toyota is teasing it already, it could be very soon. We’ve reached out to Toyota for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
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