Toyota Camry TRD is track ready

A sporty new Toyota Camry TRD has been revealed ahead of its Los Angeles motor show premiere, debuting a new look and introducing improved, 'track-tuned' driving dynamics.

Although power from the Camry's 3.5-litre V6 remains unchanged at 224kW and 362Nm, the car features an upgraded cat-back dual exhaust system described by Toyota as "aggressive" with a "throatier idle and acceleration sound".

Perhaps the biggest change to the Toyota Camry TRD is the revised suspension. The Camry TRD rides 15mm lower than its garden-variety siblings, adding a little more street cred to a car that was formerly said to be as exciting as white goods.

New TRD dampers and stiffer coil springs help achieve the lower look, which were track-tuned at Toyota's Fuji proving ground in Japan and at its Texas MotorSport Ranch. Other chassis upgrades include stiffer front and rear anti-roll bars and bigger 19x8.5-inch matt-black alloy wheels that shave 5.6kg off the car's kerb weight.

Bridgestone Potenza tyres (235/40) wrap around the wheels, inside which are bigger 328mm front brake discs (an increase of 23mm), worked over by twin-piston calipers.

The Camry TRD's visuals were penned at Toyota's U.S. design studio, Calty, and include a beefier front bumper with a reworked black grille, side skirts, rear diffuser and decklid spoiler. Red pinstriping adds a little more razzle-dazzle to proceedings, as does a brash two-tone paint job, thanks to the black roof.

TRD stainless steel exhaust outlets are in evidence and Toyota has also upgraded the interior to make sure owners feel suitably racy. There's an abundance of red stitching on the leatherette seats, gear shifter and steering wheel, matched with a scarlet motif for the instrument panel and TRD embroidery on the headrests. Red seatbelts finish off the cabin.

At this stage the 2020 Toyota Camry TRD is destined for US markets and will go on sale in the second half of 2019.

Toyota Australia is keen to push the new GR or Gazoo Racing sporty sub-brand for its performance models, expected to kick off with a Corolla hot hatch. The local arm axed the TRD brand in Australia after sales failed to eventuate.

There were locally-developed versions of the Toyota Aurion TRD and Toyota HiLux TRD powered by supercharged petrol V6 engines, but unlike FPV and HSV they failed to ignite the imagination of Aussie buyers.

Orlando Rodriguez, product public relations manager at Toyota Australia, said the Camry TRD was unlikely to be sold Australia.

"They're a US-only proposition, especially with the TRD branding. It's not really on our radar and at this stage we'd need to look at it more deeply to say one way or the other to bring it in.

"We're committed to bringing in GR [Gazoo Racing], so anything with TRD branding has ceased," he said, adding that TRD accessories are phased out too.

"Anything with a performance angle will be coming in as GR product in future.

"For us, the size of the market we've got, we can't have too many sub brands. It's a bit different in the US and they have a lot of built-up heritage with TRD."

Rodriguez said it was too early to talk about how the GR performance brand will be rolled out here, whether accessories such as body kits like the one seen on the Camry TRD will lead the way, or an all-new model like the Toyota Corolla or HiLux GR will wave the flag initially.

"We're working through that at the moment. It depends on what's available first as it's all coming from global line-ups."

The current Camry is now sourced from Japan after Toyota's local production ended in October 2017.

Sales of the Toyota Camry have dropped by more than a third (38 per cent) since local manufacturing ceased, but the brand still maintains a stranglehold on the number one sales position as Australia's most popular new car brand.