Toyota Camry bags award for best designed car

New Delhi, Dec 12: The Toyota Camry has been adjudged the best designed car of the year on Indian roads by Top Gear, a leading automobile publication in the country.

In November in the US, the redesigned Camry had been declared the Car of the Year by Motor Trend, the world's automotive authority and part of PRIMEDIA's Consumer Automotive Group.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) has so far sold 857 sixth generation Camry since its launch in March 2006. TKM has also sold a total of nearly 4,000 units from its debut to India in 2002 and has registered a sales growth of 28 per cent over last year.

Receiving the award at a glittering function in Mumbai on Monday, TKM Director Corporate Planning Division Makoto Ono said, ''The Camry is the one car that offers something for nearly everyone -- performance, efficiency and roominess.'' To be eligible for the Best Designed Car of the Year, a vehicle must be totally new or redesigned, and released in the 12 months prior to January 1, 2007 (cars with modifications such as new engines or that are variants of existing models are not eligible).

This year's field of contenders for Best Designed Car of the Year included the Honda Civic, Zen Estillo, Chevrolet Aveo, Lancer Cedia and the Toyota Camry.

In India, Toyota offers the manual and automatic versions of 2.4 litre petrol versions in five shades of Super White II, Silver Metallic, Black, Beige Mica Metallic and also the newly introduced Light Blue Metallic.

The sixth Generation Camry is priced at Rs 22,10,500 for the Automatic Transmission Version and Rs 20,48,500 for the Manual Transmission Version (Ex-Showroom New Delhi).

TKM is a joint venture between Toyota Motor Corporation and the Kirloskar Group. It has invested about Rs 1,500 crore in its plant at Bidadi, employing over 2,300 people.

The plant started production in December 1999 and has a capacity of producing 60,000 units annually.

UNI