Mountain Wheels: Pint

Nov 18, 2023

News News | Aug 5, 2023

[email protected]

For those who want to approximate the experience of a full-blown, $850,000 World Rally Car, but find their budget somewhat more limited … we have a suggestion. And, this time, it’s not a Subaru, or the late Ford Focus RS.

Toyota’s Gazoo Racing division, now the official designation of civilian builds of both the GR86 rear-wheel-drive racer and the more frightening, new-school GR Supra, has a new member: The GR Corolla.

While that long-lasting name may not conjure images of high-performance motoring, the 2024 (and 2023) GR Corollas have almost nothing in common with their more sedate, entry-level family automotive siblings.

Rather, they are wildly giddy 300-horsepower hot hatches with rally derived all-wheel drive and nothing but six-speed manual transmissions — their rear wheels so close to the rear bumper that you can turn on a dime. Which is the idea. Oh, and they have three exhaust pipes, of course.

Like the higher-end versions of Subaru’s WRX (yes, World Rally, again), the GR Corolla also allows drivers to reconfigure the torque split from front to back for more push, pull or stickiness.

Best of all, the very basic 2023 GR Corolla Core model was base priced at just $35,900, and it has the same engine as the vehicle’s more upscale and perhaps track-oriented models, the Circuit Edition and the Morizo Edition.

Some backstory, first. Foreign markets already get the one-size-smaller GR Yaris, albeit with the same engine. That vehicle itself is kind of a loony project from Toyota’s own Akio Toyoda, who apparently dons a Stig-styled race helmet and spends track days as “Morizo” — and desperately wanted some indication that Toyota made vehicles that weren’t all as safe as milk, as they used to say.

For North America, the GR Corolla is that slightly ridiculous, one-size-larger automobile, which has been tested on Japanese racetracks, as well as muddy and wintry rally racing routes.

We put that to test a few weeks back with a mixture of urban and ultra-winding mountain roads, and the results will be pure nirvana for an admittedly small segment of the car-buying population.

GR Corolla’s most impressive attribute is its three-cylinder turbocharged 1.6-liter engine, which is happiest at 6,500 rpm and offers 273 pound-feet of torque, above 3,000 rpm. As that suggests, the race car Corolla is built to be driven aggressively, pretty much all of the time, with a clutch feel and flywheel that seem to weigh as much as the entire car itself (which is, by the way, just 3,252 pounds).

It is indeed a funny little, fast-moving car, with a 103.9-inch wheelbase and just 173.6 inches of total length, meaning it might fit in the bed of last week’s GMC Silverado 2500.

The clutch weight could be a deal-killer, especially if you’re someone who drives maybe two manual-transmission cars a year. But it’s robust enough to take the beating required to get the most out of the Corolla, which does need a lot of juice to produce those bigger numbers.

Throttle blipping is a button away — sometimes raising revs so much on downshifts that you fear the engine will explode — and third gear seemed to be about right for almost any road that had curves.

The tiny wheelbase allows occasional 90-degree cranks of the wheel in the deepest of 10 mph corners, with special 18-inch Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tires doing a very sticky job on summertime roads. Standard brakes are 14-inch four-piston disc brakes up front and they quickly demonstrated why they get upgraded on the track versions of the car. Mine also got a $1,180 performance package that included red-painted calipers and front/rear limited slip differentials.

GR Corolla is all nose, wheels and angles, a little lumpy, really. From the rear, with the hatch topped with an oversized aero dam and that peculiar third exhaust pipe dead center, the vehicle looks like an overly aggressive Mazda3 (or maybe the old Mazdaspeed3) — flared wheel arches, sinister brake lamps and a low-to-the-ground profile.

Inside, it’s definitely a $35,000 car, though the higher-edition builds do go a little more intently on seating surfaces, which are surprisingly comfortable and nonconfrontational at this level. Otherwise, don’t come expecting a lot more than glossy plastics and oddly oversized steering wheel and shift knobs, though the multivariate digital instrument display and a small navigation touchscreen make things contemporary.

To keep that rally car heritage alive, every GR Corolla owner gets a free one-year membership in the National Auto Sport Association, with free admission to one High Performance Driving Event, and lots of encouragement to take part in autocross or localized rally events.

Andy Stonehouse’s column “Mountain Wheels” publishes Saturdays in the Summit Daily News. Stonehouse has worked as an editor and writer in Colorado since 1998, focusing on automotive coverage since 2004. He lives in Golden. Contact him at [email protected].

Aug 5, 2023

Aug 5, 2023

Aug 4, 2023

Aug 4, 2023

Aug 4, 2023

As a Summit Daily News reader, you make our work possible.

Summit Daily is embarking on a multiyear project to digitize its archives going back to 1989 and make them available to the public in partnership with the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. The full project is expected to cost about $165,000. All donations made in 2023 will go directly toward this project.

Every contribution, no matter the size, will make a difference.