Here is the Toyota GR Corolla, Officially

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

We reported on the leak of the Toyota GR Corolla yesterday, and as expected, the specs we reported on matched up.

The 1.6-liter three-cylinder does indeed make 300 horsepower and 273 lb-ft of torque and the all-wheel-drive system is, indeed, customizable.

Further details include a wide range for peak torque — from 3,000 to 5,500 RPM. Max horsepower hits at 6,500 RPM. Toyota says the car has a triple exhaust, but it’s unclear to us if that’s a true triple exhaust or not. UPDATE: Toyota says it is.

The six-speed stick with rev-matching that we’ve mentioned before will be the ONLY transmission available. No auto for you!

GR Corolla will be built at Toyota’s Motomachi plant, and it will be on the GA-C platform.

There will be two trims available: Core and Circuit Edition, which is first-year only. Core will be available later this year in three colors: White, black, or red. The roof will be color-keyed, but the rear lip spoiler will be black. The seats get a GR logo.

Circuit Edition cars will come in red, white, or gray, add a carbon-fiber roof, vented hood with bulge, rear spoiler, suede sport seats with red accents, and an autographed shift knob.

Both cars come with a new touchscreen infotainment system.

Other available features, as reported yesterday, will include Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires (235 mm width), front and rear Torsen limited-slip differentials, three drive modes (normal, sport, and track), functional exterior vents for aerodynamics and cooling, a gauge cluster that differentiates itself from the “normal” Corolla, LED headlights and DRLs, gloss-black grille with integrated LED fog lamps, and matte black 18-inch wheels.

Available interior features include a pull-type parking brake lever (praise be to the heavens), automatic climate control, heated seats, heated steering wheel, navigation, wireless cell-phone charging, an auxiliary port, and two USB ports.

Toyota’s Safety Sense 3.0 suite of advanced driver-assistance systems is standard, and it includes pre-collision with pedestrian detection, lane-departure alert with steering assist, and dynamic radar cruise control. Other driving-aid systems include blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, and hill-start assist.

Toyota claims that an increase in frame weld points leads to more structural rigidity. The front suspension is a MacPherson-type strut, while the rear is a double-wishbone multilink setup.

The brakes have four-piston calipers in front and two-piston calipers at the rear, and Circuit cars get red-painted calipers.

Toyota has taken steps to reduce weight. Not only in terms of the available carbon-fiber roof — the door panels are aluminum, as is the hood.

Color us intrigued — Toyota has made a strong effort in recent times to bolster its performance offerings. We don’t know pricing yet, but if Toyota prices this car right, then Volkswagen and Hyundai are on notice. So, too, are the purveyors of hot compact sport sedans.

It’s a fun time for fans of hopped-up small cars. Now, if Mazda could just bring back the Mazdaspeed 3.

[Images: Toyota]

Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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  • Conundrum Conundrum on Apr 01, 2022

    The GR Yaris seems like a hoot to drive if you go to YouBoob and have a squint at Germans flogging the daylights out of them around the Nurburgring. The constantly slipping clutch seems to overheat rather readily, though*. Long term tests by car emags suggest the ride is fine, but that highway noise is wearing. The cost of the thing is 34K pounds in the UK for the decent one with Torsen front and rear diffs. Wind off about 20% for Value-added taxes. The GR Corolla has a bit more wick and a lot more weight, likely 400 lbs more. Toyota isn't after GTIs or worrying about Hyundai stuff -- they're competing with the Civic Type R in their minds, I'd bet. No automatic there either, and no AWD. You either get the schtick or you don't. If you don't, Toyota cares not a single damn. Climb up into your pickup truck and concern yourself with whether the towing specs suit your once a year needs! Or rave about DSG. * The AWD system is like early SH-AWD, but Lite. probably too light. The rear GR diff has a different gear ratio to the front one. It's about 1% higher-geared. So if the AWD center clutch is locked up, the back wheels are trying to go faster than the fronts. They can't. So the rear tires slip instead. That's likely the 30/70 split of the three modes, because the rear tires will be constantly pushing, pushing. Good for the life of the center clutch though -- it isn't doing any slipping. The 50/50 torque split track mode means the AWD clutch is constantly slipping to compensate for the gearing. There's the heat problem right there you see on the video track day blasts. You get to be a hero for a few laps until the clutch is automatically dialed offline to cool down, and the car reverts to being FWD. The 60:40 Normal mode relies on both a bit of clutch and rear tire slip to get by. No matter how you look at it, this AWD system is a bit of a cheapy, relying on the different rear gearing for handling results. I'd love to drive one just to say I did, but the chances of hooning much these days is over. I got into enough trouble witha Talon TSi AWD 30 years ago running from cops. Today, your average trundler in a crossover gets in the way, anyway. Most people would be happy with 100 hp, except when it comes to long steep hills on four laners when they want big midrange power. Their minds are out of gear.

  • Randy in rocklin Randy in rocklin on Apr 02, 2022

    I'm 70 yo, I have two 87 Supras, one I bot brand new and one I got 5 years ago. I also have 2 MR2's a 91 5 speed and a 2004 SMT. I can still drive and shift and makes it all the more fun to drive. I also have a 2005 Avalon as my daily. The clutches (hydraulically operated) on Toyotas are soft and easy and the shifter snikecty snick.

  • CoastieLenn No idea why, but nothing about a 4Runner excites me post-2004. To me, they're peak "try-hard", even above the Wrangler and Gladiator.
  • AZFelix A well earned anniversary.Can they also attend to the Mach-E?
  • Jalop1991 The intermediate shaft and right front driveshaft may not be fully engaged due to suspected improper assembly by the supplier. Over time, partial engagement can cause damage to the intermediate shaft splines. Damaged shaft splines may result in unintended vehicle movement while in Park if the parking brake is not engagedGee, my Chrysler van automatically engages the parking brake when we put it in Park. Do you mean to tell me that the idjits at Kia, and the idjit buyers, couldn't figure out wanting this in THEIR MOST EXPENSIVE VEHICLE????
  • Dukeisduke I've been waiting to see if they were going to do something special for the 60th Anniversary. I was four years old when the Mustang was introduced. I can remember that one of our neighbors bought a '65 coupe (they were all titled as '65 models, even the '64-1/2 cars), and it's the first one I can remember seeing. In the '90s I knew an older gentleman that owned a '64-1/2 model coupe with the 260 V8.
  • SCE to AUX "...the complete Mustang model lineup to peruse"Will the fake Mustang show up, too?
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