NYIAS: Fifty-Year-Old Toyota Corolla Gets New Nose

by Chris Tonn

Published: March 24th, 2016

nyias fifty year old toyota corolla gets new nose

The eleventh generation Toyota Corolla has been refreshed with a new beak-like nose, and equipped with new safety features and options. Furthermore, as the Corolla is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, a special commemorative edition has been announced.

I’ll expect to see a few of these rolling across the blocks at the Barrett-Jackson auction in 2046.

The restyled Corolla offers an optional suite of safety features, referred to as Toyota Safety Sense-P. We have been assured that it is not a mobile bladder evacuation device; rather, a package including a pre-collision system that detects pedestrians, radar cruise control, lane departure warning, and automatic high beam headlamps.

Those headlamps are now fitted with LEDs across the line from the base model up to the XLE.

The 50th Anniversary Special Edition is limited to 8,000 units, all well equipped, and featuring unique alloy wheels, Black Cherry stitching on the seats, steering wheel, shift boot, and armrest, and Black Cherry accents on the door and dash.

Unsurprisingly, the Anniversary car is in Black Cherry, as well as Classic Silver and Blizzard Pearl, and will be available fall 2016.

Required with any special car release these days, Toyota developed a marketing campaign centered around the hashtag The campaign, in partnership with Buzzfeed, allows Corolla owners to share their memories of owning the best-selling car worldwide.

[Images: Toyota]

#2017ToyotaCorolla #Corolla #NYIAS #Toyota #ToyotaCorolla

Chris Tonn

Some enthusiasts say they were born with gasoline in their veins. Chris Tonn, on the other hand, had rust flakes in his eyes nearly since birth. Living in salty Ohio and being hopelessly addicted to vintage British and Japanese steel will do that to you. His work has appeared in eBay Motors, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars, Reader's Digest, AutoGuide, Family Handyman, and Jalopnik. He is a member of the Midwest Automotive Media Association, and he's currently looking for the safety glasses he just set down somewhere.

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2 of 82 comments

Frozenman on Mar 24, 2016

This isn't funny anymore, there is something very very wrong down at Toyota HQ.

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SnarkyRichard on Mar 25, 2016

And I thought the Lexus RC was ugly with it's giant sucker fish grill and late 90s Camaro turd like side profile . Looks like Toyota is trying to outdo those Mazda clown smile grills .

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Kjhkjlhkjhkljh kljhjkhjklhkjh A prelude is a bad idea. There is already Acura with all the weird sport trims. This will not make back it's R&D money.
Analoggrotto I don't see a red car here, how blazing stupid are you people?
Redapple2 Love the wheels
Redapple2 Good luck to them. They used to make great cars. 510. 240Z, Sentra SE-R. Maxima. Frontier.
Joe65688619 Under Ghosn they went through the same short-term bottom-line thinking that GM did in the 80s/90s, and they have not recovered say, to their heyday in the 50s and 60s in terms of market share and innovation. Poor design decisions (a CVT in their front-wheel drive "4-Door Sports Car", model overlap in a poorly performing segment (they never needed the Altima AND the Maxima...what they needed was one vehicle with different drivetrain, including hybrid, to compete with the Accord/Camry, and decontenting their vehicles: My 2012 QX56 (I know, not a Nissan, but the same holds for the Armada) had power rear windows in the cargo area that could vent, a glass hatch on the back door that could be opened separate from the whole liftgate (in such a tall vehicle, kinda essential if you have it in a garage and want to load the trunk without having to open the garage door to make room for the lift gate), a nice driver's side folding armrest, and a few other quality-of-life details absent from my 2018 QX80. In a competitive market this attention to detai is can be the differentiator that sell cars. Now they are caught in the middle of the market, competing more with Hyundai and Kia and selling discounted vehicles near the same price points, but losing money on them. They invested also invested a lot in niche platforms. The Leaf was one of the first full EVs, but never really evolved. They misjudged the market - luxury EVs are selling, small budget models not so much. Variable compression engines offering little in terms of real-world power or tech, let a lot of complexity that is leading to higher failure rates. Aside from the Z and GT-R (low volume models), not much forced induction (whether your a fan or not, look at what Honda did with the CR-V and Acura RDX - same chassis, slap a turbo on it, make it nicer inside, and now you can sell it as a semi-premium brand with higher markup). That said, I do believe they retain the technical and engineering capability to do far better. About time management realized they need to make smarter investments and understand their markets better.