{"id":49106,"date":"2023-05-08T00:03:28","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T04:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=49106"},"modified":"2023-05-08T00:03:28","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T04:03:28","slug":"junkyard-gem-2000-toyota-camry-solara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=49106","title":{"rendered":"Junkyard Gem: 2000 Toyota Camry Solara SE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toyota began selling the Camry in North America in 1983<\/a>, replacing the rear-wheel-drive Corona<\/a>. Most U.S.-market Camrys have been four-door sedans, though wagon versions were available from 1987<\/a> through 1996<\/a>. There was a brief moment in the middle 1990s, however, when new Camry coupes<\/a> appeared in American Toyota showrooms. Few seemed interested in buying those two-doors, but Toyota refused to give up\u00a0completely<\/em> on the idea of a sporty car based on the Camry platform. The result of this persistence was the Camry Solara<\/a>, a slick-looking machine available for the 1999 through 2008 model years. Here’s an early Solara, found in a Colorado car graveyard recently.<\/p>\n

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The kind of American car shoppers who might have wanted a rakish coupe were moving over to truck-shaped machinery as fast as they could by the time this car was built, and that process would continue at breakneck speed throughout the 2000s. Adding a Camry Solara convertible in 2000<\/a> helped a bit, and Toyota increasingly de-emphasized the Camry name in the Solara’s marketing materials as the years went by, but sales were never spectacular.<\/p>\n

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This car is the SE V6 trim level, which had an MSRP of $21,648 (about $38,582 in 2023 dollars). The base SE with four-banger cost $18,938 ($33,752 today).<\/p>\n

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Those prices were for cars with five-speed manual transmissions, and that’s just what this car has. The automatic was an extra 800 bucks in the SE ($1,426 now).<\/p>\n

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The last time Americans could buy a new Camry sedan with three pedals\u00a0and<\/em> a V6 engine<\/a> was early in 2001; four-cylinder Camry sedans with manual transmissions<\/a> were available all the way through 2011. It appears that 2002 was the final model year for a Solara with V6 and five-on-the-floor manual<\/a>; four-cylinder Solaras could be bought with stick-shifts all the way through the end in 2008.<\/p>\n

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Junkyard shoppers have purchased most of the front body components from this car.<\/p>\n

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With an electronic odometer here, I can’t check the final mileage without powering up the ECU (which is possible, though not easy<\/a>, in the junkyard). I’d wager that it got past the 200,000-mile mark.<\/p>\n\n

It’s not one of\u00a0those<\/em> Camrys.<\/p>\n\n

Don’t get a wife, two kids, a dog and a Camry sedan. Get a dog and a Camry Solara instead! My parents drove a 1967 Ford Custom two-door sedan<\/a> and a 1949 Cadillac Club Coupe<\/a> when I was a toddler, making me living proof that childhood can be survived with just two doors per family car \u2026 but the rules have changed since then, apparently.<\/p>\n\n

An entirely different kind of Camry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toyota began selling the Camry in North America in 1983, replacing the rear-wheel-drive Corona. Most U.S.-market Camrys have been four-door sedans, though wagon versions were available from 1987 through 1996. There was a brief moment in the middle 1990s, however, when new Camry coupes appeared in American Toyota showrooms. Few seemed interested in buying those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49107,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}