#MyDreamBuild 2011 Toyota Camry

As the challenge stated you must use your own car, I cannot drive nor do I own a car so I will use the better of the two cars that my family owns (the other is a Toyota Sienna). The Camry is an LE trim but we bought it because, as we all know, a Toyota never breaks. If I could make it into an ultimate dream build, I would turn it into a decent car for both weekends and daily driving.

1: Engine Swap

The current engine inside the Camry is an Inline 4 with 169 horsepower 😱😱😱 (shocking I know), now I know horsepower isn’t everything but a car like this kind of needs some number of decent horsepower. What I plan to do is either find a Camry V6 from another Camry of possibly get a Lotus Camry engine with a supercharger on it. It would be front engine and rear wheel drive. I would prefer to have a Lotus engine paired with the Lotus manual transmission as it would probably be a little more entertaining. I most likely will have to find a Lotus Evora for salvage that had some sort of front-end collision damage, that or find a beat up one (because Toyota never breaks). That in it of itself with a good engine would probably run me about $15,000.

2: Drive Train Swap

This is probably the trickiest part, it would take a lot of ingenuity to figure out how to fit this in the Camry as I would probably have to use the rear trunk for some of it and even considering cutting up the body. Remember that the Lotus drive train is rear wheel drive, so since the Camry is front wheel drive, it would take quite a bit of work the shape the body to be able to house the drive train. Again the cost would be part of the salvage Evora.

3: Exterior Modifications

The exterior would receive a few changes in terms of aesthetics and functional changes. Functionally, i would put on arch fenders to allow for wider wheels as having 350 horsepower going to the rear wheels could get a little crazy but with wider tires it means having more grip. I would also try to model the exterior to have nicer proportions instead of a bland Camry I would try to fit the new Camry V6 body panels onto the car for a better look and more air flow though the front of the car via the grille. Other than that I would probably make it slightly lower, nicer wheels, a slight lip spoiler around the trunk, new LED/Xenon headlights and make it white with blue accents. This would probably cost about $25,000 as body panels are quite expensive (this is basically the whole body of a car), the wheels are already between $500-$1500 a piece, the custom arches would probably be $3000 and various other features such as the headlight and paint would probably cost $5000

Interior

As I mentioned earlier, Toyotas do not break, in the case of the interior there isn’t anything to break. What I mean by that is that it is REALLY bare bones. The rear seats and door are just cloth and plastic without any kind of design and the only function is the door handle and window operations. The front seats are merely the same except for the center console and doors which have more options than in the rear. So I would probably go and buy some new Leather seats and strip down the interior and reduce weight where ever possible and put in new suede cloth, plastic and leather. There wouldn’t be any new technology or anything like that just a nicer interior. This would probably cost $10,000 for the materials.

Conclusion

Honestly it seems like a better idea to just buy and modify a new Lotus Evora or even a new Toyota Camry V6. The Evora makes sense in every way, BUT (and this is a big one), it can’t be nearly as good of a daily driver as the Camry, even without the trunk space the Camry still has rear seats and a spacious interior. The purpose of the car was to be a good grocery getter but get those groceries quickly. This project as a whole does not make much sense as it would be better to just buy a Lexus if I want a good rear wheel drive luxury car. Overall, the car cost about $50,000 in modifications alone, this does not include taxes or the labor as i could not do this by myself.