Toyota gets ‘emotional’ with the new Camry, and elicits a smile

Fuel economy: 21 miles per gallon city, 31 highway

Weight: 3,484 pounds

Engine: 3.5-liter V-6 with 268 horsepower and 248 pound-feet of torque

Transmission: Six-speed automatic

Performance: 0 to 60 mph in 5.8 seconds

Sources: Toyota Motor Sales USA; Car and Driver

Though the Camry is still the top-selling sedan in America, its yearly volume over the last five or six years has dropped nearly 10 percent.

Not only has this soft-shoe segment gotten more competitive, some consumers have abandoned it altogether, opting instead for more interesting and useful crossover vehicles.

So I figure Toyota made the right move in ordering up a thorough restyling and tweaking of the Camry for 2015.

The glossy maroon XSE model I had recently featured a lower, sleeker front end with a simple single-bar grille up high and a deeper blacked-out grille beneath the bumper.

Newly curved sides wore a couple of well-placed character lines — one dashing jauntily through the door handles at a slight angle and a second down low curving up Lexus-like in front of the rear wheels.

While the gray 18-inch wheels and 225/45 tires looked kind of small, the Camry’s curvy new body seemed to settle onto them pretty comfortably.

In back, standard-issue tail lamps wrapped around a softer, more curved rump.

My high-end $36,000 model even exhaled through dual exhausts, tied to a familiar 3.5-liter V-6 up front.

And Toyota should be lauded for still offering a V-6. Many big competitors in the midsize sedan segment, including the Ford Fusion, Chevy Malibu, Hyundai Sonata and Kia Optima, now roll solely on four-banger power.

The aging 3.5 still cranks out a decent 268 horsepower and is tied to a modern six-speed automatic.

Torquey and smooth down low, the engine pushes the 3,500-pound Camry around with relative ease, sprinting to 60 in a quick 5.8 seconds, according to Car and Driver’s timing gear.

The front-wheel-drive sedan is also rated at a reasonable 21 miles per gallon in the city and impressive 31 on the highway.

But under hard acceleration, the engine got kind of coarse above 4,000 rpm, and it lacked the sharp responses of a direct-injected V-6.

Likewise, while the six-speed automatic typically shifted seamlessly, it occasionally stumbled as it searched for a downshift.

But, unlike the Camry I drove a couple of years ago, this one rode with firm, athletic confidence — seeming at times to have a few shreds of German in it.

The new Camry has the same dimensions as last year’s sedan, but it got additional spot-welds for more rigidity.

In addition, high-end XSE models ride on firmer shocks and springs and harder bushings and benefit from a more aggressive tune for the electric power steering.

While the Camry turned into corners pretty cleanly with relatively little lean, the car’s skinny tires lacked sporting grip and the suspension in general didn’t much like being under duress.

The biggest hurdle may be the steering, which while quick, is numb and lacking in feeling.

Take solace in the fine highway ride of the Camry, best appreciated from its new upgraded interior. The one in my Camry was black with faux red stitching on the dashboard, seats and door panels.

A big, flat dash featured some Lexus-like lines as it wrapped around a large center stack.

The gauges on the instrument panel almost looked like something you might find in a BMW — black-faced with thin chrome rings around them.

Meanwhile, the big center stack resembled one in a late-model Hyundai Sonata — broad with smartly placed buttons and large knobs, and topped by a 7-inch display screen.

Inside, plastic still dominates the landscape. The door panels and dash are all or mostly plastic.

But the faux red stitching relieves some of the hard darkness, and the leather seats looked pretty luxurious. With perforated suede centers and leather bolsters, the seats felt as good as they looked.

Moreover, legroom and headroom in back were ample even for contemporary large adults.

In short, it would be a pleasant place to watch the miles fly by on a day trip.

But what about the long run? The midsize segment appears to be stagnating, and crossovers — those car-based SUV pretenders — aren’t the only challenge to keeping buyers in sedans.

A loaded midsizer can easily cost $35,000 or more, which also is the doorway to the burgeoning near-luxury segment and vehicles like the Mercedes-Benz CLA 250 and Audi A3.

Ironically, though, vehicles in the midsize segment are better than ever, and the Camry is no exception.