Just a year ago, the inexpensive, small performance car seemed nearly dead in America. Now, we seem to have an embarrassment of them. The latest to join the craze is Toyota, with a good old-fashioned hot hatch – what happens when you combine what’s in the race-car parts bin with your inexpensive hatchback platform.
The 2023 Toyota GR Corolla puts all-wheel drive, big brakes, and 300 turbocharged horsepower onto the bones of the humble Corolla hatchback. Toyota has revealed everything but the price.
Toyota knew they had something special with this car and teased the world about it for months. It appeared as an Easter egg in ads for other cars, hidden just out of focus. We can’t even be sure enthusiasts have found them all – fans on web forums are still checking reflections in the mirrors of every Toyota ad this year.
But they no longer have to speculate about the little car they may see there.
100 Horsepower Per Cylinder
The GR Corolla packs a lot of power into a small space. It uses a 1.6-liter turbocharged 3-cylinder engine. The little mill makes 300 horsepower. Buyers will have a choice between a 6-speed manual transmission and wishing someone taught them to drive stick so they could drive this car. Toyota won’t build it with an automatic.
Power goes to all four wheels all the time. And, in case this car’s performance plans weren’t obvious, there’s even an old-fashioned, mechanical, yank-it-up handbrake for performing power slides.
A Corolla Chassis and Body, Improved
The platform underneath is borrowed from the ordinary Corolla but strengthened with added welds and adhesives to make it handle tighter. The front suspension is a MacPherson strut setup. The rear is multilink. Four-piston brakes up front and 2-piston brakes in the back are ventilated for quicker cooling.
It all rides on the Corolla platform, in an ordinary Corolla hatch body that has been modified like a scrawny kid that spent a summer working out hard. A new grille adds a large lower air intake. Wider front fenders have functional side vents to cool the brakes. Wide side skirts wear “GR FOUR” lettering – the terminology Toyota’s Gazoo Racing unit uses for its 4-wheel-drive system.
Two Editions, Two Cabin Schemes
A big roof spoiler sits above three exhaust tips. Wide wheel housings cover 18-inch wheels wrapped in Michelin Pilot Sport tires – footwear we’re accustomed to seeing on high-end sports cars.
The GR Corolla will be offered in two editions. The base Core model gets sport seats and a black-and-gray interior theme with aluminum pedals and trim accents. An 8-inch infotainment screen and 6-speaker sound system come with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard equipment.
Upgrading to the Circuit edition gets a forged carbon-fiber roof, a black-and-red upholstery theme, and automatic climate control. Its shift knob bears the signature of “Morizo” – the racing alter ego of Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda, whose weekend racing hobby is the reason Japan’s most family-focused automaker now builds things like hot hatches again.
Competition Everywhere
Almost no one built high-performance versions of affordable cars just last year. But in a string of six months, we’ve seen a reborn Honda Civic Si, a new VW Golf R, a reborn Subaru WRX, Hyundai’s first attempt with the Elantra N, and now the GR Corolla. We still expect a Honda Civic Type R any day now as well.
Toyota says the price of the GR Corolla will be announced in the coming months, and that the hot hatch will go on sale later this year.
