How a fake image of new Toyota Camry went viral as the real deal

An artist's impression of the next Toyota Camry, the successor to one of the world's biggest-selling sedans, inadvertently used in an official Toyota video has fooled social media – and news outlets – into thinking it was the real deal.

Overnight, social media users, and a number of US media outlets reported on what they believed to be a first look at the next-generation Toyota Camry sedan, months before the car's unveiling due later this year.

The image – seen briefly on the cover of a fictional book in a Toyota USA video about new-car financing – showed a futuristic Camry-sized Toyota sedan with design cues from the Japanese car giant's latest models.

However it was soon pointed out – even before it began to do the rounds on social media in the US – that the image was just a third-party artist's impression of what it could look like.

As it transpires, it was convincing enough to fool some industry observers – and Toyota themselves – into thinking it was the real deal.

The illustration was created by artist Theottle – who Drive commissions regularly to create renderings of future vehicles (click here for Theo's latest work) – in August 2022, borrowing design cues from Japan's Toyota Crown Sport and applying them to today's Camry.

Drive featured the illustration in February 2023 in a report on the upcoming version of the Toyota Camry, which is expected to be unveiled before the end of this year – possibly at the Los Angeles motor show in November – ahead of showroom arrivals next year.

In a statement to US media including Carscoops, Toyota USA claimed the marketing agency that created the video used the illustration as a placeholder – rather than mistakenly thinking it was a real Toyota vehicle.

"The referenced video was created by one of Toyota Financial Service’s vendors that mistakenly used an artist’s conceptual rendering of a Camry that was a meant as a placeholder during the production process," the statement said.

"The vendor has no access to Toyota planned vehicle design images and the image is not a preview of a future Camry. Toyota Financial Services is removing the image from the video."

The YouTube video has since been taken down, however screenshots of the illustration within it have circulated widely online.

The original version of the illustration is shown above – and you can click the video above to watch Theottle's video on how it was created.

While Toyota says "the image is not a preview of a future Camry" – given it was not created by the Japanese car giant – the design cues in Theottle's illustration are from other new Toyota models, and it is a fair guess of what the new car is expected to look like.

Spy photos show the 'new' Camry will be a heavy facelift of its predecessor – with partially new bodywork over carry-over underpinnings and similar dimensions.