> all Camry pictures

This latest Toyota Camry is as bold a statement as Toyota makes with its top-selling, bread-and-butter vehicles. The message in that statement? Reliability and consumer confidence do not necessarily require blandly conservative styling. A year after the current Toyota Camry was turned loosed on American roads, the 2008 model's visual impact has diminished only a little.

Yet, if Toyota wanted to make a stronger fashion statement with the country's best selling car, it couldn't risk doing so at the expense of function. This sixth evolution of the Camry is the largest ever, though not by much. Its wheelbase is more than two inches longer than models built before 2007, and its track is a hint wider, with wheels pushed further toward the corners of the car. Yet, thanks to a shorter rear overhang, or that portion of the body that extends past the back wheels, this Camry maintains the same overall length as the previous generation. The result of this reconfiguration is more interior space, and particularly fore-aft length, with the same external footprint as before.

The flashy new styling (first introduced on the 2007 models) starts at the Camry's nose. The front end is fresh, and easily the boldest element of the new look, with sharp points, curving cut-lines and entertaining surface planes. The hood dips broadly through the middle, pushing visual heft out over the front fenders. The grille wears a Toyota emblem prominently above softly slanted, horizontal slats. The single-piece fascia blends all the diverse elements into a smooth aerodyanamic look that's several steps away from the pro forma, overly inoffensive, just-another-midsize-car-from-Japan look.

The side view is less fashionable and somewhat bulky looking, with a high beltline, symmetrical windows and square doors, graced with a barely discernible character line running through flush-mounted door handles. The wheel openings are circular, which on a car with a lower profile might suggest sporty intentions. On the Toyota Camry, they draw attention to the expanse of sheet metal between them, and instead whisper sedate. An odd but increasingly popular, miniaturized rip on the squared-off trunk lid of the BMW 7-Series finishes the side profile.

That bustle-like hump gives the trailing edge of the trunk a slight aero-lip that suggests it's there to reduce rear lift at high speeds. An oversize Toyota emblem perches atop the license plate recess. Proud taillight lenses mirror the outline of the headlights, angling down and inward across the trunk lid seam, closely tracing the pattern set by the headlights and grille. The bumper wraps around the back end, capping the corners beneath the taillights and sweeping into a soft, horizontal indentation that, on the V6-equipped models, finishes in cutouts for the chrome-tipped dual exhausts.

The sportier Camry SE is the easiest model to distinguish, and perhaps the boldest of all. The inference of aero treatment on the trunk lid is boosted on the SE with an honest spoiler. A black honeycomb-style grille sneers forward from smoked-tint headlamps, while a full body kit flares the lower edge of the car outward, emphasizing the sport model's lower ride height. Six-spoke, 17-inch aluminum wheels fill those circular wheel wells nicely.

There's also aerodynamic massaging that isn't obvious to the eye, particularly on the sport-tuned SE and the other specialty Camry, the Hybrid. Engineers focused on making the underbody as flat as possible to smooth airflow under the car and reduce noise. On the SE, they also tuned the flow to balance downforce, or the aerodynamic force that presses the car to the pavement, nearly equally over the front and rear tires.

With the Toyota Camry Hybrid, the aerodynamic focus was on efficiency. Unique wheel spats and underbelly pans reduce the coefficient of drag (Cd) to a low 0.27. This reduces the amount of energy required to move the Hybrid at a given speed, and in turn helps increase fuel economy.

> all Camry pictures

Inside, the Camry offers a welcome counterpoint to its exterior styling. While the outside has been touched with a splash of pizzazz, the inside has been brushed with shades of elegance. The treatment is not quite up to, say, Lexus-level luxury, but, especially in the top-of-the-line XLE, this Camry raises the bar on interior polish for mid-price, mid-size sedans.

The cabin is trimmed with a brushed metallic finish in the CE, LE, SE, and Hybrid. Real-looking glossy wood grain is used inside the XLE, including surrounds for the door-release handles. The fabric upholstery combines breathable, waffle-texture insets with smooth bolsters and backing. The leather upgrade isn't quite kid glove, but it feels expensive. On the less positive side, the hard plastic covering the roof pillars looks cheap, and the mouse fur headliner disappoints.

Today's midsize sedans are roomy vehicles, yet the feeling of roominess in the Camry is tempered by direct comparisons with the competition. In headroom, for instance, the Toyota Camry matches the Ford Fusion, but trails the Honda Accord and Hyundai Sonata by almost an inch and a half in front. Camry loses to all four in front-seat legroom. It's mid-pack in hip room, and near the top in rear legroom. The seats are comfortable front and rear, though the seat bottoms are short on thigh support for taller occupants. Rear-seat passengers in the XLE enjoy a luxury rarely seen in this class: reclining seatbacks.

The sloping hood delivers good sightlines from the driver's seat. The thick C-pillar, or that part of the body supporting the roof behind the rear doors, looks less imposing to the driver than from outside the car. Low-profile rear-seat head restraints leave the view in the rearview mirror mostly unblocked. Outside mirrors are placed farther rearward than we'd like, forcing us to physically turn the head for quick checks instead of just glancing sideways.

Almost everything inside the Toyota Camry speaks refined function. The speedometer and tachometer are large, circular and easy to scan, save for brief periods at dusk and under certain types of street lighting, when the luminescent instruments on all but the SE can wash out. Those in the SE, which are black on white with sharp blue-ish backlighting, avoid this eye-straining fade. They're part of this sporty model's unique interior treatment, which features dark charcoal or Ash gray hues and a grippy leather-wrapped, three-spoke steering wheel.

The window switches are clustered nicely on the driver's door armrest, just below the mirror switch and door lock, so they sit right where the hand rests when the driver sets forearm on the door. However, only the driver's window switch is lit at night, and it's not very bright. That means the other switches in the cluster, including the locks and mirrors, must be located by touch when it's dark, rather than by sight.

Controls for audio and air conditioning are easily manageable, clearly labeled and logically positioned in the center stack, with audio above and climate below. The pastel blue-green lighting around the optional navigation system reminds us of Miami Beach, and we love the separate on/off switches for the audio and navigation systems. The dual switches are a departure from most other vehicles today, which have a single on/off switch. So if you want the nav but no audio, you have to crank the volume all the way down, and still run the risk of picking up interference.

The cabin offers lots of usable cubbies for storing things. Cup holders and assorted nooks and covered bins are located conveniently about the center stack and console. A large glove box spans the lower dash between the center stack and passenger door. Only the front doors get map pockets, which are fixed, hard plastic that allows most everything stored there to slide. A similar material forms the magazine pouches on the back of the front seatbacks. A covered storage bin in the fold-down center rear armrest doubles as cup holders for rear passengers. On the SE and XLE, it also conceals a pass-through to the trunk. The SE offers only this pass-through, rather than the folding rear seat on other models, thanks to an extra brace behind the seat the stiffens the body for sporty handling.

Trunk space is adequate. Compared to the competition, Camry's maximum trunk space of 15 cubic feet trails all but the Accord. The XLE's reclining back seats exact a slight penalty in trunk space, dropping it 0.5 cubic feet compared to other models. The Toyota Camry Hybrid takes an even bigger hit, losing 4.3 cubic feet of trunk space to its battery. The Camry's trunk is fully finished, with a grocery hook, and utility box. The XLE comes with a luggage net that keeps cargo from sliding. There's no pull-down handle inside the trunk lid to spare fingers the grime and grit that can accumulate on exterior surfaces in winter.