Is the 2012 Camry Getting a Facelift or Not?

Boy, that was confusing. Autoblog recently reported that Toyota would be giving the Camry a facelift because a patent had been filed in which new pictures of the vehicle were included. Yes, the Camry just saw some minor changes in their 2010 design, but according to this report, the automobile would get even more cosmetic changes as early as 2012.

The problem, of course, is that the report ended up being wrong.

It was an interesting bit of news, especially considering the fact that Camry is the country’s best-selling vehicle by quite a lot (even with all the public relations problems Toyota has had in recent months). But, as happens in the world of press releases and blogs and rumors, this one ended up being bunk.

Had it been true, however, we would’ve seen a more toned-down Camry, not like the more decorated Camrys you’d get now from a Newark used Toyota dealer. It’s got a more whitebread look, less angular with more pronounced tail lights that use LED strips. The pictures draw up traces of a throwback look, certainly less striking than what’s currently on the market and a little more like the used cars NJ dealerships typically offer in the Camry ilk.

But things went wrong when it turned out that it wasn’t a Camry that was pictured in the filed patent, but the Australian-market Toyota Aurion. The confusion probably comes from the fact that the Aurion is—surprise!—a derivative of the Camry. Still, that doesn’t rule out the possibility that some minor changes could be in store for future models of America’s best-selling car. Some have speculated that the reason this Aurion was filed with the U.S. Patent Office was because Toyota could be planning on using the automobile’s fascias as an inexpensive change for the 2011 or 2012 Camry.

Maybe this car needed to see some changes, and maybe it didn’t, but at the end of the day we’ve had to sort though a whole mess of confusion over this filed patent try to figure what it has to do with Toyota’s future plans. Right now, it’s still a bit of a mystery, but we’ve got more hints now than we did a few weeks ago. It was confusing, but we’re starting to get it all straightened out. Will the Camry get a dramatic facelift in a couple years? We’ll just have to wait and see.