This Toyota sleeper Camry is a race car in disguise
The conventional Toyota Camry has been one of the best selling cars in international markets like America for the past two decades and remains one of the most sorts after in most African countries including Nigeria.
They say never judge a book by its cover and that is exactly the case with this innocent-looking Toyota Camry that looked like any other model when it was showcased at the just concluded 2014 SEMA Show in Las Vegas. Media and show-goers didn’t think much of the Camry at first, until it did something really amazing.
This particular Camry tagged the dragster is the ultimate sleeper and definitely has the element of surprise on its side and more than enough muscle to drop the hammer on any unsuspecting car that pulls up.
From the outside, it’s just another 2015 Toyota Camry. But it’s only a disguise. Underneath, it’s a dragster. And the “Sleeper Camry” was one of the hits of last week’s SEMA aftermarket trade show here.
Sometimes, looks can be very deceptive and this is certainly one of those times, as Toyota successfully took the entirety of the media corps at the crowd-pulling motor show by surprise by rolling an innocent-looking Camry onto the floor…only to lift literally the entirety of its body to reveal an 850-horsepower, tube-framed dragster whereas some buyers have been asking for a more driver-oriented Toyota.
While it is designed to go fast in a straight line, the origin of the Camry Dragster’s parts might be surprising. In case you don’t know, the 5.7-liter V8 engine, transmission, rear axle and electronics were plucked from the Toyota Tundra pickup.
The outside body is only a frame, even through the doors and truck work. The inside is totally about racing, with only a driver’s seat surrounded by a roll cage. The 5.7-liter V-8 engine, used on a Tundra pickup, has been tuned to put out 612 horsepower, but there are three nitrous bottles in the truck that add another 250 to 300 horsepower for the strip.
In building this power-loaded Camry, the Toyota Racing Development donated a supercharger, while a wet-nitrous-injection system was also tacked on for that little extra something. Those goodies will help propel this anonymous looking monster through the quarter mile in just 9.8 seconds.
It comes with a beefy 335/30R18 drag racing tyre that are ready to hit the track! And the huge transformation was done in just 11 weeks before the biggest aftermarket auto convention in the world. A lot of detail and craftsmanship went into making the Sleeper Camry, which is seen throughout the dragster from its stock doors to its custom interior.
Officials inside the automakers plant were so excited about this piece of engineering that Toyota’s motorsports chief Steve Appelbaum was quick to point out that, “This is the most extreme build we’ve ever unveiled at SEMA. The transformation from seemingly stock Camry to full-blown racecar just shocks the senses.” Indeed Chuck Wade and the team at Motorsports Technical Center did a truly spectacular job executing the vision of this project.
High-horsepower and impressive speed, on the other hand, is not synonymous with the car. That is until when you have encountered this 2015 Toyota Camry. The “sleeper” dragster was built by a team of specialists at Motorsports Technical Center over the span of 11 weeks.
From the outside, it is a seemingly average Camry with no difference than what you might see in suburban drive ways and mall parking lots. However, when the bodywork of the show car is lifted up, the inner-workings of a fire-breathing dragster are revealed.
Lurking beneath is a supercharged 5.7 liter V8 with traces of a highly modified Toyota Tundra-sourced truck engine system that produces more than 850 hp.
With the monster motor, the XSE is capable of covering a quarter-mile in 9.8 seconds. To put that into perspective, a $1.3 million McLaren P1 hypercar covers the same distance in 9.9 seconds, while the $4 million Lamborghini Veneno makes the quarter-mile run in 10.6 seconds.
MIKE OCHONMA