Yet another Corolla… and this time, it doesn’t even have a four cylinder!? What the hell is the point? A dinky little 1.6L inline 3 from a Yaris… god this is gonna be depressin–

Ok craps been cut. The story behind this one is, surprise, yet another friend who’s in the process of reaping in those sweet, sweet aerospace bucks coupled with the realization that payments on one of these ain’t bad. So out went the manual ‘Rolla SE, and in comes the GR’olla. Welcome fellas, to a car I have been waiting to get my grubby little grubs on since its announcement!

I hopped on the turbo-3 GR bandwagon since the GR Yaris first came out. And while the excitement has slowed a little since then, I’m still riding that GR hype high. I’ve read the reviews, watched the videos, seen the arguments on Subaru facebook groups like the old fart I am, and I’ve even longingly spec’d out the three options available on Toyota’s website to build the perfect car. Hell, I even considered whether or not trading in the ol’ STI for one of these would be a good idea.

And yet, here we are, two years later and that same Subaru lives in my garage. All the while, the GR experience has eluded me.

If you’ve stuck around us long enough, you might’ve remembered reading a review on a Hyundai Veloster N. If not, go give us more traffic, consumer. Anyways, that car was also fairly hyped because how often does the U.S. get a hot hatch, let alone a new one? Then I drove a manual one and was kinda let down by it. I bring this up because I was anticipating something similar.

So with the expectation set, let’s get into the GR Corolla and find out if- fuuuck me Toyota wasn’t just cooking with gas, but with motherfuckin’ hypergolic fuels.

That was a damn fun car. Like, full disclosure here, I fully enjoyed both driving that car and chasing it in the dirt, and was riding that emotional high even while writing this on a flight a few many days removed.

Which is at least a little odd because it’s not the most fast feeling. Boost builds to a healthy number somewhere past 28 psi in overboost. But the acceleration, even it it’s most aggressive throttle map, feels linear. You get a noise like a baby straight six paired with a large turbo spooling, but don’t really get an enormous punch after first gear. It’s linear aggression building up and suddenly you’re over 80 mph. You just kinda, get to speed but as a driver you don’t get much of that sensation – And then you shift to third.

And you hear the turbo breath

And maybe some faint pops.

Aaaaand suddenly the car starts egging you on to keep going. Hello VA WRX levels of immaturity, you were throughly missed!

The GR’olla conducts itself in a similar way to my current and prior Subarus. AWD grip works with a fairly rev-happy, well boosted engine to pull your ass out of corners. And it’s addictive. You enter with speed, gun it once the car is pointed vaguely in the way you want to go, and then riiiiiide that surge like a surfing penguin in a 2010s kid’s move. Keep your foot down, don’t shift till 7000 rpm (you WIMP). You’ve gotta commit to it, this is a rally homologated powertrain after all.

This car grips and fucks off in a way that will slap a smile to your face. I see why people keep tracking them (and uh… welllll breaking them too). It’s just fun, fairly engaging, and one helluva bad influence. It’s got all the right hardware to feel as precise and nimble as a car that, like the STI it never sold against, still wants to pay lip service to rally heritage. But like the WRX that is currently shares sales with, it has that stupid egg you on personality.

And it’s a car thats almost as fast as my (not stock) STI, even with one less cylinder, missing almost a liter of displacement, and around 35-40 hp down. But that comparison we’ll get to in a minute, promise.

Shall we do specs quickly?

The 1.6 i3 revs to like, 7000 rpm, and makes 300hp and 273 ft-lb of torque. It weighs in at around 3250 lb. Also, the AWD system has a few settings. We left the system in 50:50 and 30:70 for the power split, however just driving like a prick on the street you won’t really notice a big difference. On track or gravel, it’ll be a different story.

Great, “car journalism housekeeping” outta the way, let’s get back to it.

The powertrain is fun, addictive even. But is that a surprise? Toyota has been smoking the good stuff ever since they put a supercharger in a Yaris (bet ya didn’t recall that one!). And of course it handles and chassis talks well. It was a little stiffer than I was expecting, but take it as a good surprise. It feels planted, it turns it quick, and tells you pretty well what the front end is up to.

There are some little complaints though. The steering weight doesn’t exactly match the quickness of the rack. Like, it’s a bit too heavy. It sorta falls into the modern car thing of “they crave sportiness and sportiness means heft”. So you wind up with a kinda heavy and slightly dull wheel. To bring in the STI comparisons, while that hydraulic rack has its faults, the weight seems to correlate well with both how eager the car reacts and what the front weight is up to. So while it sometimes feels a bit overeager in day to day traffic, the moment you’re on a windy dirt road you’ve got exactly what you need to throw the damn car in, catch it, and make all those little corrections as you power your way out. And on the right road, say a slightly damp twisting segment of Appalachia’s finest, that talkative light wheel also translates pretty well. The GR’olla isn’t 100% there, but comparing a new electric to an older hydraulic power steering probably isn’t fair. And it’s really not that big of a deal it me at the end of the day. It feels *slightly* too heavy. And it’s not dead feeling. So, congrats Toyota, you managed to do better than the C8 lmao.

Going through gears is also interesting. The clutch engages high and the gas requires a bit of shove and time to nail a heel and toe downshift. Turbo car with an electric throttle body, whatcha expect? Well the shifter itself is a bit funky too. Not only are the throws short, but the space between gears is fairly small. Then there’s this odd feeling of like, hitting a wall when you shift.

Yeah I don’t know either. I’ve driven cars with short throw shifters installed, and have never really felt that kind of sensation. But that also, starts to fade into the background once you get going. When you’re moving, going through gears quickly and playing with the car, it all starts to work.

The interior was nice too. I get that people complain about quality, and yeah it is kinda Corolla-y in here. But your steering wheel fits your hands nicely and your seats grab your side-chub with “grace and reassuring heft”. Also, the display is pretty nice to my eyes. Like, if you get rid of physical gauges, go make them look cool, and in “angry angry race car mode”, you get a dumb horizontal bar that tracks your RPM, and the tic mark the spread increases like a damn log function the further up in RPM you go. My dumb ass little brain kinda digs it. And that’s enough on interiors really, because outside of some misc material choices, drive mode button, and center diff control, it is just a sporty Corolla in here.

Ok so back to the ol’ comparison. The last generation WRX STI is a more raw car, kinda because it’s also a bit more shit. You hear more noises, your audio sucks, the infotainment screens in that car got updated thrice and they’re all kinda ass, and that stupid flawed engine we all love so much does it best to convert quite a bit of 93 octane into noise and grunt. The flip side is, you’ve got one joyous little engine, more noise, a better feeling gearbox (when the bushings aren’t shit at least…), more direct steering, three diffs to command (and more adjustability), and brakes from the gods (or in this case the 6-pot Brembos used in the Lexus RC-F rebranded as bright green STI units). It’s a car that will give you the confidence to send it down almost any road no matter how shit and come out the other end and smiling imbecile.

However the GR Corolla gives you an almost identical driving experience with a little less “edge” in a far more modern package. And what the GR’olla lacks in that little bit of unhinged rawness it makes up for by being a less serious car and more usable.

You know what differentiated an STI from a WRX? All those mechanical changes take a goofy ass turbo-laggy car that loves poking you with the “let’s be dumb” stick and shoulders its weight with responsibilities. It’s a better performing car because of it, but it drives like it wants to attack everything all at once while yelling at you to go do better. The GR Corolla feels like it still wants to just joke around.

You can drive it day to day, and it’ll sit there and poke you the moment you start to hear the turbo spool up. But where it really becomes a little nudging shit is through turns. You feel that stupid car cling to tarmac, you hear all the induction noise. Then get hit with boost on exit and it looks back you, eager for more shenanigans.

Go give in to the stupidity. Toyota has built a stupid car that’ll make you giggle like an idiot every day. Hopefully they’ll keep on making shit like this. It’s refreshing to not drive dreary new cars, more so to not have to write about them.