Before digging into our Camry, we drove it over to Gainesville for our Kumho Tires $2012 Challenge, powered by eBay Motors. Since we already had an autocross course set up and access to the drag strip, it was a perfect opportunity to put our family sedan through its paces.
The Camry was very loose and floppy on the autocross course and had very little grip from its 600-treadwear tires. That said, the basic platform is quite competent and we posted solid mid-pack times for our family hauler.
On the drag strip, the rock-hard and dry-rotted tires once again held us back, making it hard to launch the car with any quickness. Despite that, we posted four drag runs all within .2 seconds—ranging from 15.90 to 16.10, with a trap speed of 86.8 mph. For comparison, we also had a 2012 Ford Mustang V6 convertible with an automatic transmission; it ran a 15.56 at 90 mph.
Next up, we'll finally get rid of those old tires and start working on that worn-out suspension.
| Get the best sports car content 8 times a year. Subscribe to Grassroots Motorsports now. |
