The Solara was a mid-size, Camry-based coupe and convertible produced from 1999 to 2008. It was designed to appeal to Camry buyers who wanted more of a sporty ride. Having personally owned four Camrys, I suspect the Solaro was an ample and reliable addition to anyone’s fleet. This 1999 coupe looks brand new, though its mileage is in the six figures. It’s available through a dealer here on craigslist and seems reasonably priced at $3,995.
Before the Camry Solara, there was the Camry Coupe. It was more conservatively styled like the Camry sedan. To increase sales, the Solara came along in 1999 and had spunkier styling that probably appealed to younger buyers. A coupe came first in 1999, followed by a drop-top the next year. The sedan continued to outsell the coupes and convertibles, so Toyota decided to stick solely with the Camry after 2008. These cars were not built in Japan, but in Canada through a joint venture.
The seller’s car should have a 3.0-liter V6 under the hood, paired with an automatic transmission. This ’99 edition looks to have been babied its whole life. It’s the SLE edition, which means it has almost every creature comfort Toyota offered, such as cruise control, a CD/MP3 player, power accessories, leather upholstery, ABS braking, alloy wheels, and the works. The car’s history isn’t mentioned, but it does have 123,000 miles.
The body and white paint look perfect, and the beige interior looks equally shipshape. Considering how well these automobiles were/are made, this Toyota should have loads of life left in it, perhaps more than you’d expect out of a $4,000 car in 2026. A special ‘thanks’ goes to “Curvette” for this well-healed tip.
Seems like a great deal! It is just getting broken in at 123k miles, especially in the pacific NW.
High mileage Toyotas become oil burners. It’s okay if you stay on top of it and in fact they’ll run with almost no oil, for awhile, ask me how I know. That said, I do like the Solara compared to the boring Camry sedan. The convertible looks great with the top down. Top up not so much.
I own a few Camrys. 2011 4 cyl. with 90,000 miles. 1997 4 cyl. with 212,000 miles. Daily driver/work car is a 1998 V6 with 337,000 miles. The last one I had was 4 cyl. with.437,000 miles, running fine when I sold it. Air and cruise work in all of them. NONE of them use a drop of oil between 5,000 mile oil changes. If yours burned oil; you must have babied them too much. Buy you another and drive it like a man. This low mileage car is nice and priced nice.
My 2012 Highlander lasted 323,000 miles it finally died but it was the rear differential freezing up. My 2007 Camry ran until 278,000 and my 2015 prius has 196,000 and my 2014 Avalon LTD is running like new with only 72,000.
I’m a giant fan of Toyota
Your right about the oil consumption I had a Camry with 235,000 miles and I had to add oil quite a bit.
My granddaughter used to have one, she had to upgrade to a minivan and sold it for $500 bucks it had 398k on it when she sold it and still going strong
I remember reading about a dozen years ago that the Camry Solara was near the top of the list of cars most likely to get a speeding ticket, not sure why. You can probably find the old articles if you Google “Camry Solara speeding ticket” or similar.
Thanks Bill i did look it up and the Camry Solara was #2 with the average driver age 50 with women accounting for 61%.
I bought one of these with a stick shift years ago. Fun V6 with a stick shift.
Great gas mileage. I wish the ad had the timing belt replacement information attached.
The one thing I’d like to see is some one modify one of the coupes and put the 5.7 RWD set up.
I think it would be an awesome car. Of course it would take an incredible fabrication artist but it would be a quick little car
A totally underrated car! My 2000 Solara SLE V6 has all possible options including gold dust metallic paint, with 125,000 trouble free miles. About 2,000 miles ago I put on Pirelli Cinturato P7 All Season tires which may be the greatest overall tire ever – super quiet, great handling, solid in wet and snow, and I’ve noticed a 2 mpg increase.
It’s quick – 0-60 in seven seconds – Lexus level quiet and composed, smooth ride, surprisingly nimble handling, and usually 30ish mpg. Everyone who rides in it are amazed at all of the qualities I mentioned.
When I was young and foolish I was Finance Manager at one the largest Toyota dealers on the West Coast. It was an insane pressure cooker and damn near broke me, but I never saw a bad product. There simply has never been a better (more reliable) car built anyplace on earth.