Toyota Camry will win mid-size sales in 2012, sell at least 400,000 units

The view from the top continues to look really, really good: top executives at Toyota Motor Sales says the number-one-selling Toyota Camry mid-size sedan is poised to sell over 400,000 units this year, returning to its former glory and taking the top passenger car spot for the eleventh year in a row.

We’ve been reporting for months on how the Toyota Camry has pulled out a sometimes-thin but never-beatable lead in the mid-size market; Toyota sold 314,788 Camrys through the end of September, more than it sold in all of last year. The only thing with an engine and four wheels that outsells the Camry is the mighty Ford F-Series pickup, which had a ridiculous 150,000-unit lead on the Camry at the beginning of this month. It’s poised to take the crown of the top-selling motorized vehicle sold in the U.S. (It’s unclear whether or not the Little Tykes Cozy Coupe will eke out a win as the top-selling “car.”)

With a couple of months left in 2012, Automotive News reports that Toyota is calling the race: the Camry will win the prize in 2012, beating the Honda Accord (247,847 through 10/1) and Nissan Altima (234,040). On top of that, Toyota says that the Camry is headed to a 400,000-plus-unit year, the first since 2008.

It’s been a rough and complex couple of years for the Toyota Camry: its 2012 redesign almost completely coincided with a pair of natural disasters in Japan and southeast Asia, stretching supplies thin. Thankfully for Toyota, the tsunami and floods all but knocked out the Camry’s main challenger, the Honda Accord, but Nissan’s Altima–which wasn’t new and wasn’t as effected by the weather–pulled out a convincing second-place finish for most of 2012.

With the Altima’s supplies now stretched thanks to a redesigned model, the Accord is back, but that car is also in the middle of a transition. With Honda claiming that the 2013 Accord represents the majority of Accord sales in October (meaning that the transition period is nearly over), the two Japanese challengers will once again duke it out in a battle that will probably intensify in 2013.

What say you–is the Toyota Camry’s win a deserved one? Will the new 2013 Accord or the wild-looking 2013 Ford Fusion knock the king off its perch next year? Let us know your predictions in the comments section below.