Every so often, car auction sites run a car that truly makes you raise an eyebrow both for the vehicle and the result. The latest case? A 2002 Toyota Camry XLE just sold for $22,000 on Bring a Trailer. For those keeping track, that’s $50 shy of the MSRP of a new Corolla. Huh?
The XV30 Camry isn’t the most important Camry ever made, but it’s still a solid car. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great continuation of the lineage, but it isn’t a moonshot model in the same way the 1992 Camry was. However, there’s just something special about well-preserved versions of ordinary cars that few people thought to save, and that’s exactly the case here.
With just 17,000 miles on the clock of this example, you can’t help but get the sense that there likely aren’t many fresher-looking 2002 Camry XLEs outside the possession of Toyota. The paint hasn’t seen enough weather to be weathered, the seats haven’t seen enough wear-and-tear to be worn or torn, the alloy wheels still gleam, and the plastic-lens headlights haven’t developed automotive cataracts. It only takes one glance to imagine vividly what it must’ve been like to be a high-earning Consumer Reports subscriber with 1.6 children circa 2002. Every appliance in your Cape Cod house was industrial-grade, every piece of clothing in every solid-wood heirloom wardrobe was made to last, and in the garage sat a well-equipped Camry.
Not only is everything on this Camry said to work, everything on this car will continue working essentially forever with regular maintenance. So long as you change the oil and the timing belt at suggested intervals, the three-liter non-VVT-i 1MZ-FE V6 will keep going forever. So long as you change the transmission fluid every few years, the four-speed automatic will continue to work just fine. If you live in a sunny climate and want a car you can buy and keep for life, this is a respectable candidate.
However, $22,000 for a 2002 Toyota Camry XLE is a lot of money in 2024, and the price combined with the state of residence for this car might make it a little challenging for those looking for a reliable daily driver and those looking for a collector’s item alike. On the one hand, a new Corolla carries an MSRP just $50 more, although once you add freight, you end up with a price delta of $1,145. Now, the Camry with its V6 is rated at 21 mpg combined, but the Corolla is rated at 35 mpg combined. If you drive an average of 13,000 miles per year, you’ll wipe out that delta within two years.
At the same time, this particular Camry is a rust-belt car, and while the underside isn’t one oxidized mass, there’s some light corrosion on the chassis legs and some more prominent corrosion on the subframes that’ll take some money to get perfect. For collectors, that corrosion could limit the number of people wanting to buy this particular car in the future.
Then again, it only takes one person to make a sale, and as little as two or three to create a bidding war. The fact is, someone did pay $22,000 for this 2003 Toyota Camry XLE, and they seem stoked about it. Auction winner Falcon7711 wrote in the comments, “If you never owned one of these Camry’s from this vintage you would not understand. This will be my 4th, all the others have gone to the Kids. This one I’m keeping.”
Now those are some family ties. Hey, when your kids have taken the other three Camry sedans, what’s spending $22k on a nice one? Car enthusiasts come in all stripes, and that includes fans of America’s most popular passenger car.
(Photo credits: Bring a Trailer)
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The buyer is right, I don’t understand, and I am a HUGE proponent of Camrys. That is not the Camry that cemented Toyota’s reputation for quality. The prior XV10 and XV20 Camry are the truly special Camrys. Not because they’re hugely engaging to drive or anything, but because they’re indestructible – especially the XV10. I doubt there has ever been another mass-market consumer car that is as high quality as an XV10 Camry. I’m not saying the XV30 is bad by any means – but it doesn’t have the reputation the earlier cars had.
I could MAYBE, MAYBE see the $22,000 price justified if this were a <1000 mile garage-stored car with a nearly pristine undercarriage. Instead, this looks like a Camry that was driven only in the winter by some old lady because she would otherwise walk when the weather was nice. It’s not a rotten hulk, but it’s pretty far from pristine.
This is crazy money, for a not-that-good-condition example of a not-that-special generation of car. I think the buyer just got way too caught up in the BaT craziness.
Straight-up insane price after seeing the rust. After seeing the price, I expected under 10k miles and a showroom condition undercarriage.
i know, i know, i’ve ranted about this before and been proven wrong- but seeing stupid money spent on a boring car like this always screams ‘money laundering’ to me and while i might not die on this hill, i am prepared to suffer, like, a papercut
Do these need to be preserved? Enough photographic evidence exists to prove these were real.
The most exciting part of this vehicle is that it didn’t break often. That thrilling story can be told without a working example on-hand.
“Gee, remember that time the Camry started? What a thrilling day!”
I owned this car in Maroon. Reliable enough I guess, but the V6 is more trouble than it is worth. Reaching the fuel injectors and spark plugs for the rear bank of cylinders requires removing the intake manifold. Massive pain.
I do not like how rusty the exhaust looks for that price. Michigan roads gave mine a pretty bad exhaust leak after 200k miles. This one probably will need a full exhaust job to get there.
Yeah, that’d be a big no. Five k would be too high imo.
On one hand, holy crap. On the other… I daily a ’96 Avalon 110-120 miles per day, so I absolutely understand the appeal of a low mileage Toyota from that era. They’re comfortable, competent, indestructible, efficient, and though boring, they still don’t feel like a penalty box.
My scientific observations in the freeway tells me that the 2002 Toyota Camry in beige color is the fastest vehicle around (followed closely by the Nissan Altima of any generation and the Amazon delivery van).
So this clearly is the fastest car ever.
No dent in the rear bumper. I’m out.
Hopefully my chiropractor doesn’t see this, otherwise I’ll be hearing all about how valuable his car suddenly is at my next visit.
Find a better chiropractor.
My grandparents own an identical one with 170k miles on it that has a totally clean underbody because it’s a California car. Maybe I should throw it up on BaT after the estate sale, too? People are so ridiculously obsessed with low mileages.
I’m not gonna whiz in anybody’s pool…if that’s what this person wants, and they have the means, by all means enjoy that thing for what it is.
Man, this is making me feel things. Probably things about the inexorable passage of time and the impermanence of even the most important objects in our lives. 2002 might as well be 1902 as far as a lot of people are concerned, but this beige Camry just keeps ticking away.
Which makes me wonder, is this actually art?
That is, without a doubt in my mind, a car.
It’s one of the cars of all time!
$22k and I would have to install the Camry Dent myself? No way.
$22K? My twin sons recently pooled their summer job resources and picked up this Camry’s fancy cousin, a 2002 Lexus ES300 with 100k miles for $3k. Granted, it shows its age a bit more than this Camry but it has a new timing belt and ice cold AC. It’s a tank, and these kids are loving it. I told them they better love it because they’re going to have it for a long time.
I don’t get it.
Well done, seller (if you disregard inflation and the costs of storing a car for 20 years)?
Former owner of a VX30, a 2003 with the 4 banger.
These are fantastic cars. I wouldn’t pay $22,000 for one unless it’s the VX30 that JFK was shot in, but if you can find a clean example in the $5,000 range it’s a great value. An important 2.4L specific shopping point is to ask about the intake manifold. It is a common failure point, so if it hasn’t already been done you should budget or negotiate the cost into the purchase. I had it done on my Camry because I knew I wanted to keep it for a few more years, so after a couple of months without car payments the repair had already paid for itself.
My sister-in-law still drives an ’02 in white. The interior has held up incredibly well. The paint, not so much, but it is a 22 year old car. I drove it a couple of years ago and, well, it was perfectly acceptable, with not a rattle or odd hum to worry about. My family (and eventually I) owned a ’98 Camry that performed the same, it gobbled up miles and while it wasn’t particularly fun to drive, it never sucked.
22k is steep, but I would bet this Camry is going to outlast a whole lot of brand new cars rolling off the lots right now. As for the weird enthusiasm for such bland things, there’s a certain charm for the hyper-monogamous relationship between old Camry’s and their owners. These people value loyalty and dependability. You could be worse.
Toyota Camry: The official car of monogamy for 41 years… and counting!
The white paint Toyota used back then does not seem to hold up well. I think it was single stage, since it just gets chalky and dull instead of suffering from clearcoat failure.
Yup its single stage enamal, you gotta keep it waxed. Good thing even if its chalky as hell you can buff it back to almost good as new. If it was clear coated and neglected like that youd probably have flaking clear and be looking at new paint.
Of course its a beater Toyota so who really cares about the paint anyways.
Also a bunch of fools to pay $22k for a rot box like that. Might be low mile but its FAR FAR FAR from mint.
That’s exactly what’s going on with hers. Very chalky.
I have a 2001 Camry that I inherited from my aunt. I’ll take even trade on a low mileage ND2 Miata. Any color, manual only, must have the limited slip differential.
On some level, I get it. I believe there’s still a big market out there for a comfortable, roomy, extremely reliable appliance car that will run forever and won’t drive you nuts with haptic controls and intrusive driver aids, and at 17k miles the new owner can indeed probably hold onto this car for life. That being said, I think this kind of money for a car that presents this poorly underneath is a bit crazy. For $22k I would expect the greasy bits to look as good as the shiny bits.To be faaaairrrr, I do appreciate the seller’s honesty in not slapping a quick coat of satin black on those subframe and suspension components while the car was up on a lift so the new owner could make an informed decision as to what this car needs doing to it.
A little rust remover, some replacement bushings, and some fresh black paint would do the underside of this car wonders. Pitter patter, let’s get at ‘er!
The T-shirt I bought from that Glen guy says “Pitter patter, let’s get goin'”. You sure you got that right?
100%. The shirt you bought was a Glen “swing and a miss” goof shirt on the real phrase. Here’s the skit where it came from.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pitter+patter+lets+get+at+er
Lol, I was referencing the Glen “swing and a miss”. Letterkenny Patois has basically become the official language of my office the last few years, even the ones who don’t watch Keeso’s shows use “pitter patter” at this point.
[Stick tap]
The beige Camry. The car for enthusiasts who think Miracle Whip is a bit too exciting.
I drove one of these that had about 230k on the odometer. The paint still looked nice. The interior was almost perfect. And it drove like it had a quarter of those miles on it. I had an identical experience in a 1998 Camry, also approaching moon mileage. Genuinely impressive. They may not be exciting but there’s definitely something to be said for a car that can rack up 200k and still drive like new.
Didn’t almost everyone own one of these in the early 2000s? I swear you couldn’t swing a dead cat in a parking lot without hitting one – in this color too.
Are you sure that dead cat didn’t hit a few? There were an awful lot of Camry dents in this generation…
My 2003 came with multiple Camry dents, so I got to have the smug superiority of knowing that none of them were my fault.
This is exactly the model and color my MIL used to drive. Comfortable, good gas mileage, nice power, and as exciting to drive as a sofa.
Shoot, just missed the far better 5S-FE by a couple years.
Pass.