Disclaimer: This is a long article that I wrote as somewhat of a joke for my coworkers who, for some odd reason, were genuinely interested in my thoughts of jumping from my beloved GTI to an old family car. I’m not a journalist by any stretch of the imagination and by all technicalities, English was my second language. However, I’ve always wanted to write about cars so this is a fun little piece for me. Spare me any harsh critiques about my writing prose but I hope you enjoy the read.
Background: The car is a 1995 Camry LE 4DR inline-4 with an optional moonroof and 3-disc in-dash CD changer coupled to a 4 speed automatic. It has over 170,000 miles on the odometer at the time of writing. My parents bought it new late summer of 1995 shortly after we moved to the burbs from our Manhattan apartment. My brother was not even born yet. I learnt to drive in it when I was 16 and for many years, it served as our beater commuter car for whoever needed it. My parents have two newer cars at their disposal and my brother doesn’t drive because of health reasons. So I decided to drive it for a while and give my GTI a rest cuz I’m funky and weird like that.
1. Is there even an engine in this thing?
Things were a lot different in 1995. I was still prone to wetting myself when I woke up from a nightmare and squealed with joy when it snowed. Nowadays, I see snow and think about how unjust life is for a 20something without a garage. The engine in the Camry is a 2.2L DOHC 4 banger rated for 125hp/145lbs-ft under the old SAE protocols. That was when it was new- 19 years later, I’d be impressed if it still manages to put out 100hp under the current SAE standards.
Putting around town, the car never feels underpowered. Being a car designed in the early 90s, weight comes in a shade under 3000lbs so it’s light by modern standards. Having a full load of people and trying to merge onto the highway is a very different matter. Punch the gas, the engine whines an unremarkable noise, RPMs rise, and you don’t really go anywhere. This is a far cry from the GTI’s 6th to 4th gear downshift, spooling up the turbo, and zipping past that 18 wheeler that’s about to plow you into a ditch. Thinking and planning ahead is necessary when driving an old car with a very underpowered engine.
I have to add though, that once up to speed, 80mph should not feel as stable as it does in the Camry and I think that’s a testament to when Toyota engineered things to a standard vs. a cost. The 3rd generation of the car has often been heralded as the best generation ever released with everything being over-engineered and subsequent generations being crappier than before. I may be biased but I agree with that thinking. I feel like I’m gliding by at 80mph with minimal wind noise and the Camry doesn’t put up a fight. Mileage is a wash- I get 26mpg on the highway but it takes regular. GTI can get 32/33 but take in premium.
2. I hope I don’t crash.
So let’s see uh… one, two… two airbags in total. Oh and seat belt pretensioners, can’t forget those. The alphabet soup of passive safety features only started to appear in the 90s and you had to pay a premium for it. ABS was an option on upper trims of the Camry and ours was surely not equipped with such. Twin disc brakes up front and good ole drums in the back are what stop this car. No stability control, no ABS, no brake assist, nothing. Obviously, the GTI wins in this category no matter how you view it with the plethora of electronic nannies and airbags to cushion you.
I assume the crash test ratings for the Camry were passable for 1992 when this generation debuted. Crumple zones did exist in the 90s so it has that going for it. However, what you also get is superior visibility. There are no pillars gorged with curtain airbags and a beltline that’s low so blindspots practically don’t exist. The adhesion limit is easy to figure out for anyone who knows something about handling and it’s predictable. Brakes are nowhere as strong as the GTI’s but I’ll chalk that up to both age and design. Nose dive in hard braking is very noticeable and the brake pedal goes from vague, barely clamping to hard bite within a millimeter of pedal travel and it is exhausting to modulate at times.
Yet, I find something about this sparseness both charming and saddening. I will be one of the last generations of kids who learnt to drive in cars without electronic nannies and I personally think we are doing an injustice to future drivers (aka my brother’s generation and younger) who all rely on something to save their asses when shit hits the fan. They’ll never learn how to correct under or oversteer without a computer trying to do it for them. Obviously, all this technology is for the betterment of safety but lost is in the inherent natural ability to respond to emergency situations.
3. That’s the brake, not a clutch.
I’ve gotten into the Camry several times now and immediately put my left foot on the brake before remembering that it was an automatic. This point is not valid for people with DSG but I live in a city that has its grid system mirrored after Manhattan so I hit a stop at almost every single corner. It’s absolutely refreshing to drive an automatic in congested traffic. But, in short, I’d still take a manual over an automatic. Call me old fashioned but this ties back in with the safety rant I gave earlier- driving a manual is quickly becoming a dying art (in my eyes) and I will try to preserve it for as long as I physically can. The 19 year old transmission in the Camry is responsive enough and somehow it hasn’t failed yet despite me being a complete dick to it when I was younger. Shifts are a little rough and at times, I desperately need it to downshift to 2nd gear to pass and it just doesn’t comply less I do the downshift myself. This isn’t to bring up another debate of stick vs. DSG but I do appreciate not shifting as I stare at traffic.
4. What’s an FM radio?
My first venture into the MP3 world was when my father occasionally loaned me his 2nd generation iPod. I think I was maybe 12/13 years old. GTI has all the modern audio connections blah, blah, blah. The Camry is absolutely void of any modern entertainment. The CD changer with its 3 disc capability was probably some serious avant-garde shit in 1995 but I distinctly remember it started to skip occasionally around 1999/2000 and it quit working properly shortly thereafter. It was highly complex too as you had to load three discs into a magazine, load it into the dash, and then the whole mechanism would come in and out of the dash every time the disc changed.
The tape deck continued to work until last summer and so all that is left is the basic AM/FM radio routed through 4 average, stock speakers. And let me tell you, this is where I miss the GTI the most. I don’t listen to radio when I’m in the GTI as my iPhone has all my songs plus I can stream Spotify through Bluetooth. Or if I’m really desperate, there’s Sirius. All neatly blended into a central touchscreen with a processor that seemingly dates back to 2006 but hey, it works (for the most part). Not with the Camry- It’s either the FM radio, the 4 cylinder whine, or just ear buds as I drive. And I think people that listen with earbuds as they drive as very silly.
5. Zero f!cks given.
Holy crap did I just drive over a fucking landmine? How am I still driving? Oh that’s right, I’m not riding on low profile Pirellis made of glass attached to 18” rims. Small wheels were acceptable in the 90s and looked proportionate with the rest of the car before each proceeding generation of cars got fatter and fatter.
Our Camry was a no frills family sedan and it came with no frills hubcaps on 14” steelies with big cushy tires. I am as much of a proponent of nice wheels on a car as the next car guy, but having blown threw two tires this winter on the GTI, I am scared of potholes and snow. And therein lies the beauty of an old car: you don’t have to worry about it. The hood has millions of rusted paint chips from the old family road trips, the door handle on the driver side snapped off, the windshield has a crack in it. This is no garage queen and I can park in the closest spot to the store and not worry about some stupid child opening mommy’s RX350 door into mine, like I do with the GTI. And I don’t have to worry about street parking either because if someone hits it, oh well!
I miss a lot of things about my GTI that can’t be found in the Camry- driving dynamics, peppy engine, supportive seats, modern conveniences, etc. But there is something charming about going back to basics in a car that grew up with my family over the years. The countless memories are undeniably there with a story for every dent, scratch, and misaligned panel on the car. I suspect that is why my parents have still kept the car around purely on a sentimental value. And to date, not to jinx myself, there has yet to be an incident where the car left my family stranded. That is more than I can say with my 3 year old GTI and its weak water pump.
Background: The car is a 1995 Camry LE 4DR inline-4 with an optional moonroof and 3-disc in-dash CD changer coupled to a 4 speed automatic. It has over 170,000 miles on the odometer at the time of writing. My parents bought it new late summer of 1995 shortly after we moved to the burbs from our Manhattan apartment. My brother was not even born yet. I learnt to drive in it when I was 16 and for many years, it served as our beater commuter car for whoever needed it. My parents have two newer cars at their disposal and my brother doesn’t drive because of health reasons. So I decided to drive it for a while and give my GTI a rest cuz I’m funky and weird like that.
1. Is there even an engine in this thing?
Things were a lot different in 1995. I was still prone to wetting myself when I woke up from a nightmare and squealed with joy when it snowed. Nowadays, I see snow and think about how unjust life is for a 20something without a garage. The engine in the Camry is a 2.2L DOHC 4 banger rated for 125hp/145lbs-ft under the old SAE protocols. That was when it was new- 19 years later, I’d be impressed if it still manages to put out 100hp under the current SAE standards.
Putting around town, the car never feels underpowered. Being a car designed in the early 90s, weight comes in a shade under 3000lbs so it’s light by modern standards. Having a full load of people and trying to merge onto the highway is a very different matter. Punch the gas, the engine whines an unremarkable noise, RPMs rise, and you don’t really go anywhere. This is a far cry from the GTI’s 6th to 4th gear downshift, spooling up the turbo, and zipping past that 18 wheeler that’s about to plow you into a ditch. Thinking and planning ahead is necessary when driving an old car with a very underpowered engine.
I have to add though, that once up to speed, 80mph should not feel as stable as it does in the Camry and I think that’s a testament to when Toyota engineered things to a standard vs. a cost. The 3rd generation of the car has often been heralded as the best generation ever released with everything being over-engineered and subsequent generations being crappier than before. I may be biased but I agree with that thinking. I feel like I’m gliding by at 80mph with minimal wind noise and the Camry doesn’t put up a fight. Mileage is a wash- I get 26mpg on the highway but it takes regular. GTI can get 32/33 but take in premium.
2. I hope I don’t crash.
So let’s see uh… one, two… two airbags in total. Oh and seat belt pretensioners, can’t forget those. The alphabet soup of passive safety features only started to appear in the 90s and you had to pay a premium for it. ABS was an option on upper trims of the Camry and ours was surely not equipped with such. Twin disc brakes up front and good ole drums in the back are what stop this car. No stability control, no ABS, no brake assist, nothing. Obviously, the GTI wins in this category no matter how you view it with the plethora of electronic nannies and airbags to cushion you.
I assume the crash test ratings for the Camry were passable for 1992 when this generation debuted. Crumple zones did exist in the 90s so it has that going for it. However, what you also get is superior visibility. There are no pillars gorged with curtain airbags and a beltline that’s low so blindspots practically don’t exist. The adhesion limit is easy to figure out for anyone who knows something about handling and it’s predictable. Brakes are nowhere as strong as the GTI’s but I’ll chalk that up to both age and design. Nose dive in hard braking is very noticeable and the brake pedal goes from vague, barely clamping to hard bite within a millimeter of pedal travel and it is exhausting to modulate at times.
Yet, I find something about this sparseness both charming and saddening. I will be one of the last generations of kids who learnt to drive in cars without electronic nannies and I personally think we are doing an injustice to future drivers (aka my brother’s generation and younger) who all rely on something to save their asses when shit hits the fan. They’ll never learn how to correct under or oversteer without a computer trying to do it for them. Obviously, all this technology is for the betterment of safety but lost is in the inherent natural ability to respond to emergency situations.
3. That’s the brake, not a clutch.
I’ve gotten into the Camry several times now and immediately put my left foot on the brake before remembering that it was an automatic. This point is not valid for people with DSG but I live in a city that has its grid system mirrored after Manhattan so I hit a stop at almost every single corner. It’s absolutely refreshing to drive an automatic in congested traffic. But, in short, I’d still take a manual over an automatic. Call me old fashioned but this ties back in with the safety rant I gave earlier- driving a manual is quickly becoming a dying art (in my eyes) and I will try to preserve it for as long as I physically can. The 19 year old transmission in the Camry is responsive enough and somehow it hasn’t failed yet despite me being a complete dick to it when I was younger. Shifts are a little rough and at times, I desperately need it to downshift to 2nd gear to pass and it just doesn’t comply less I do the downshift myself. This isn’t to bring up another debate of stick vs. DSG but I do appreciate not shifting as I stare at traffic.
4. What’s an FM radio?
My first venture into the MP3 world was when my father occasionally loaned me his 2nd generation iPod. I think I was maybe 12/13 years old. GTI has all the modern audio connections blah, blah, blah. The Camry is absolutely void of any modern entertainment. The CD changer with its 3 disc capability was probably some serious avant-garde shit in 1995 but I distinctly remember it started to skip occasionally around 1999/2000 and it quit working properly shortly thereafter. It was highly complex too as you had to load three discs into a magazine, load it into the dash, and then the whole mechanism would come in and out of the dash every time the disc changed.
The tape deck continued to work until last summer and so all that is left is the basic AM/FM radio routed through 4 average, stock speakers. And let me tell you, this is where I miss the GTI the most. I don’t listen to radio when I’m in the GTI as my iPhone has all my songs plus I can stream Spotify through Bluetooth. Or if I’m really desperate, there’s Sirius. All neatly blended into a central touchscreen with a processor that seemingly dates back to 2006 but hey, it works (for the most part). Not with the Camry- It’s either the FM radio, the 4 cylinder whine, or just ear buds as I drive. And I think people that listen with earbuds as they drive as very silly.
5. Zero f!cks given.
Holy crap did I just drive over a fucking landmine? How am I still driving? Oh that’s right, I’m not riding on low profile Pirellis made of glass attached to 18” rims. Small wheels were acceptable in the 90s and looked proportionate with the rest of the car before each proceeding generation of cars got fatter and fatter.
Our Camry was a no frills family sedan and it came with no frills hubcaps on 14” steelies with big cushy tires. I am as much of a proponent of nice wheels on a car as the next car guy, but having blown threw two tires this winter on the GTI, I am scared of potholes and snow. And therein lies the beauty of an old car: you don’t have to worry about it. The hood has millions of rusted paint chips from the old family road trips, the door handle on the driver side snapped off, the windshield has a crack in it. This is no garage queen and I can park in the closest spot to the store and not worry about some stupid child opening mommy’s RX350 door into mine, like I do with the GTI. And I don’t have to worry about street parking either because if someone hits it, oh well!
I miss a lot of things about my GTI that can’t be found in the Camry- driving dynamics, peppy engine, supportive seats, modern conveniences, etc. But there is something charming about going back to basics in a car that grew up with my family over the years. The countless memories are undeniably there with a story for every dent, scratch, and misaligned panel on the car. I suspect that is why my parents have still kept the car around purely on a sentimental value. And to date, not to jinx myself, there has yet to be an incident where the car left my family stranded. That is more than I can say with my 3 year old GTI and its weak water pump.
