You’ll want to be doing at most 20 km/h over speedhumps with this suspension. Photo: James Coleman.
“A car is not a car if it’s not fun.”
These are not the words of Enzo Ferrari or Jeremy Clarkson.
They came from the mouth of Toyota CEO Koji Sato at the launch of the new RAV4 in May this year. And you’d be less surprised if your dog suddenly started speaking fluent Japanese. Toyota and fun have been arch-nemeses for too long. See your next Uber for details.
So, when I told people this week’s test car was a Toyota Corolla, there was the shrug of indifference as if I’d said the sky was looking particularly blue today.
Until they saw it. And heard it. Because this isn’t just any Corolla. This is the GR Corolla.
This moniker that makes all the difference stands for Gazoo Racing, the name of Toyota’s dedicated motorsports arm. Based in Germany, GR was born in 2007 when an in-house team of student test drivers and mechanics competed in a 24-hour race at the formidable Nürburgring racetrack.
On the other side of the world, here in little old Canberra, GR has also risen to fame due to the Bates brothers, who race Toyota GR Yaris cars in the Australian Rally Championship each year.
Nowadays, you can not only buy a GR-fettled Yaris for yourself, but also a GR86 two-door coupe, a GR-Sport HiLux and LandCruiser, and now this, a GR-ified Corolla.
It first arrived here in limited numbers in 2023 – 700 GTS models and 25 Morizo editions – but this year, it scored a little styling nip-and-tuck and a new eight-speed automatic option and went on sale proper.
Obviously, the headlights and the doors are the same, and it has five seats, and still says Corolla on the back, but there’s not much of your grandmother’s garden-variety Corolla left.
For starters, your grandmother would literally be shaken to pieces, and then deafened even more than she already is – if she could ever get in. There’s an age limit on hot hatches, and for the GR Corolla, I suspect it’s younger than most.
It’s very low, and the interior is about the only thing Toyota has barely changed, so there’s still a lot of dreary black plastic and a pointy dash that’s now at the perfect height for kneecapping.
The suspension is also very firm. I made the mistake of ferrying my father-in-law one evening, and it would have been easier to carry on a conversation if we were both riding pogo sticks.
Seats are comfy, the ride less so. Photo: James Coleman.
As it turns out, I could also barely hear him.
A cold start sets off such a bassy rumble that it literally made the neighbour’s metal fence rattle – from metres away – and accelerating ever so mildly is enough for the turbo to let off a little whistle. The rest is all whooshing and roaring, and not a lot of sound-deadening. For a three-cylinder engine, it’s incredibly theatrical.
And for all this discomfort (okay, you secretly love it), you’re looking at paying $70,490 (plus on-roads), which is almost the same as two GR86s, or only $10K less than a V8 Mustang.
However (and it’s a big however), it’s definitely a fun car. Not as fast as rivals, but I’d go so far as to say it’s about as close as mere mortals can get to a rally car. All raw and raucous.
There’s the enormous handbrake, obviously. And the gaping front air dams, now even bigger for the 2025 update, and that phat rear end. And as much as I poked and prodded them with my fingers, all those vents and louvres scattered around the body work are real.
A dial between the seats adjusts the all-wheel-drive system to send up to 60 per cent of the power to the front wheels in ‘Normal’, split it 30-70 for ‘Gravel’ – so you can slide around corners in a blaze of dust, presumably – and then split it 50-50 for ‘Track’.
My blast along the windy Paddys River Road in the ACT’s west proves the grip in corners is phenomenal in any of them. Cat-on-your-best-couch phenomenal.
Yes, there is still a manual transmission option, but the automatic – while a bit controversial in a car like this – does an excellent job of imitating a manual, down to the savage gear changes. You can still take charge via the paddles on the steering wheel, too.
At the end of the day, there’s just that hefty price. Especially when the Mustang has more boot space than the Corolla, and almost as much room in the rear seats. And adjustable suspension.
Not a lot of refinement for the price, but maybe that’s the appeal. Photo: James Coleman.
2025 Toyota GR Corolla GTS Automatic
- $70,490 (plus driveaway costs)
- 1.6-litre turbocharged 3-cylinder petrol, 221 kW / 400 Nm
- 8-speed automatic, AWD
- 9.5 litres per 100 km combined fuel consumption, 98 RON
- 0-100 km/h in 5.2 seconds
- 1510 kg
- Not yet rated for safety.
Thanks to Toyota Australia for providing this car for testing. Region has no commercial arrangement with Toyota Australia.
