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Toyota Aurion XV40, Camry’s australian cousin. One of THE best australian cars of it’s day and age, a must have or atleast a must look.

At it’s time, the Toyota Aurion XV40 was Toyota’s most powerful car in Australia at it’s launch, and it was a bigger, posher Camry which was designed to take on the bad boys of it’s day. Because in Australia they don’t do 2 litres, in Australia there’s no replacement for displacement and that’s why they had to impose a 24 beer a day limit at Bathurst. In fact, just watching Bathrust tells you enough about Australia that they don’t do small engines and don’t particularly care about MPG, of which the Aurion surprinsingly cares about since it does a really good mpg for a 3.5 V6 petrol monster.

So the japanese decided that adding a new assembly line for the 3.5 V6 petrol was not economically viable for all of the Toyota plants which assembled the Camry, but they did repurpose the Altona factory in Victoria and so the Aurion was born, ready to take on the other big boy saloons of it’s day and take on the Commodore, which was at it’s wackiest during this era.

So what does the Aurion bring to the table different than the Camry?

• First of all, the looks. The Camry was too much of a vegemite design to be taken seriously by the australian market. So they had to hire a designer to aussie the Camry, and so they found the guy who previously had done the work for the Ford Falcon, and on they went. Different front and rear bumpers, modified interior dashboard and their legendary TRD trim. Toyota knew that the Camry’s reputation won’t help if they were to sell a fast, semi-luxury saloon so they needed a new nameplate.


• Foot operated parking brake instead of the regular hand-operated handbrake, due to technical reasons.


• And then came the big one. Only a 3.5 V6 engine for the Australian version and the Asian version got the smaller, 4 cylinder 2.0 and 2.4 petrols but there it’s technically not named the Toyota Aurion XV40 but the Camry Prestige, because the Aurion is a posher Camry and since they designed it anyway, might aswell try and sell it somewhere else too. Protip – it didn’t. And there is another side of the sh*t and giggles, of which I have to adress in the engines section.

Toyota Aurion XV40 Engines

Petrol

• 2.0 1AZ-FE and 3ZR-FE of 137 and 145 horsepower – As I mentioned earlier, this Aurion is actually the Camry Prestige sold in Asia, and I wouldn’t bother with a pigly 2.0 naturally aspirated to haul around the Aurion. Strive atleast to buy the 2.4 petrol.


• 2.4 2AZ-FE of 170 horsepower – Which trully makes it the posher Camry. The official Middle East Camry engine and I don’t see why you should buy a Camry over an Aurion and vice-versa. At any rate, the 1AZ-FE and it’s 2AZ-FE brother are prone to oil consumption issues and it’s a matter of “when” and not “if”.


• 3.5 V6 2GR-FE of 270 horsepower – The legendary 2GR-FE was the main and the only party piece actually of the australian Aurion XV40. Apart from the occasional spark plug and water pump, there’s not much to worry about with this workhorse of an engine. Prone to torque steer.


• 3.5 V6 2GR-FZE Supercharged of 323 horsepower – Supercharged specially for the TRD version, with TRD exclusive front bumper, revised suspension, 19 inch alloys and all of that was pretty much for nothing as the TRD soon flopped. But it was good to know that the Aurion XV40 existed and it could take on the Commodore L76, which had a massive 6.0 V8.

Hybrid

2.4 2AZ-FXE of 188 horsepower – Toyota Thailand thought of it. And they gave it a CVT gearbox instead of their classic ” U ” family of Toyota automatics. If you’re in the market for a posher hybrid Camry, go buy a Lexus. Don’t half ass it. An hybrid Aurion says about you that you’re too rich for a Camry but not quite rich enough for a Lexus. You go to the posh restaurant only to order burgers and fries. You’d go to a fine dining restaurant because you like how the food looks, but the portion sizes are too small for what you’re willing to pay.

Toyota Aurion XV40 Reliability Issues

• Still no acrobat in the bends but atleast in the target demographic they haven’t heard of bends too much so the boat-like suspension is just nice.


• The gearbox oil is not lifetime as it was advertised so make sure to change the oil every 4 years or 37,000 miles.


• Paint quality is not the best because even a flagship Toyota is still a Toyota at the end of the day.

Toyota Aurion XV40 Verdict

It may be getting on the older side of things now, but if you’re a 20 year old something who wants a posh semi-luxo-barge that’s reliable, surprinsingly economical, not very sport in the bends but pretty good in a straight line, then the glorious Toyota Aurion XV40 is a great contender for your money and you definatelly need to have a look through the ads. Sure, it may not have a manual gearbox on the aussie version, but this is not a boy racer car. This is straight line fast and it’s real good at it.

Which engines do I recommend? Well for Australia you only got the 3.5 V6 2GR-FE available and that’s that. As for the rest of the world where it was sold as the Camry Prestige, I would pick the 2.4 l-4 2AZ-FE and it’s 180 horsepower.