Original Words and Test Driven by: Anuar Norick, Fastlenz and UTUSAN Malaysia’s Automotive Columnist.

We’ve always known that Toyota is a brand for sensible cars with great durability, economical in terms of ownership and deemed affordable for most people. But every now and then, they tend to be slightly different from their usual get up. That is what I found with this Toyota GR Corolla. From the name itself, we’re pretty sure that its gonna be exciting. GR which stands for Gazoo Racing a sub-brand being promoted by Toyota as an embodiment of performance and excitement from the Japanese brand.

Although the GR emblem can be found on other models and variants, they aren’t always came equipped with the performance package. They were more or less just a cosmetic upgrades for exterior or interior of those cars, to make it more “sporty”. But this isn’t the case for the GR Corolla.

The Looks

If you’ve thought of this car as just a Toyota Yaris being given a make-over, you might not be too far from it. The overall design does look like a hatch which is not far from the Toyoto Yaris. But the GR Corolla resembles more to the GR Yaris and this one comes with a five-door package instead of three-door.

Every part of the Toyoto GR Corolla here has its function designed into it. This could be for aerodynamics, cooling function for the engine and most importantly to remove some of the excess fat on the original car.

The front grill of the car serves well to bring the air flowing for the main radiator and the engine. This then will be flowed out quickly through the strategic vents from the bonnet and from the vent behind the front wheel. The car then has this amazing wheel arch that compliments the car appearance as well as pushing out the debris or dirt from being splashed upwards when the car goes through some dirty roads with some speed. This gave the car a bulkier looks and made the GR Corolla a tad bit more appealing to look at.

The rear end of the Toyota GR Corolla is by far my personal favorite part of the car. Again, the wheel arch becomes the most significant part of the car to look at which from the back, made it look more planted and sturdier on the pavement. Combined with a strong looking yet functional 3 exhaust pipes gave the car that unique identity which is not merely a cosmetic addition on the car.

Moving into the car, I am certainly impressed by the use of material for the car’s interior especially on the seats. The combination between fabric and leather in a brilliant way made the car stands out rather than being in full leather. The suede kind of material in the middle part of the car seat while the leather on the headrest and the outer line of the semi-bucket seat of the GR Corolla, gave a brilliant touch to the cars interior aesthetics.

The car’s dashboard which is nice and simple without an over the top design into it, with a single tone color on it. The IHU of the Toyota GR Corolla comes equipped with the Apple Carplay and the Android Auto. This is actually a 2023-built car and thus seems a little bit outdated with it’s 9-inch TFT display but then again, it might be because Im so used to seeing China’s cars with their big and very modern displays inside their cars.

Driving

To start off, let’s just establish that this car is not for you to bring your family around from one place to another. The suspension is setup as it should for a performance car and you can really feel it’s stiffness that is way more than you would expect from a normal passenger car thats tuned for comfort. The GR Corolla feels like it was made for the track and thats exactly how it moves when you maneuver the car around the bend and it car just plant itself to the ground with total confident for the driver. The body rolls is kept to the minimum and this gave the car a solid performance for driving through the twistiest.

It’s powertrain came with 3 different set of mode to be chosen from while driving and this changes the responds especially within the lower gears from a static acceleration condition. This is especially felt on the eco-mode and if you get it wrong with the clutch in the first gear, you can probably stall the engine if you’re not used to it. But this ain’t a big issue once you get into the rhythm. The acceleration and responds on a normal mode is truly where the “comfort” zone lies for the GR Corolla, but it can be scary if you’re not the person that is used to how a car responds in the range of gears up to 4th and so on.

I didn’t really tested out the car’s top speed as I knew it will not have an issue to do that, but I did some hard acceleration from a traffic light and pulling off up to 148km/h which I did at around 7 seconds (manually counted), and it was a truly exhilarating experience driving this car and surely one for the passionate drivers out there.

The GR Corolla has an all wheel drives (AWD) selection with a variable torque split AWD system, configurable from 60% front, 40% rear, 50/50, and 30% front, 70% rear. This gives the car great amount of versatility for your performance driving pleasure especially on track. And all of this comes in the package of a 3-cylinder 1.6 liter turbo engine thats being tuned as a performance package that you need no doubts to it for your driving pleasure.

Conclusion

A performance car. Not your normal daily drives. Certainly not one for the use of getting your family around. In fact, I wouldn’t even consider this for a daily workhorse to get me to work and back home. It’s a very serious car, one made for the passionate drivers out there. You can’t go wrong with it, if performance is indeed the thing that you desired most out of a car. The Toyota GR Corolla is an amazing car to have in your garage and to be driven out with one thing in mind, to have fun and to enjoy the beauty of driving in a cool and clear Sunday morning drives.

With it’s RM355,000 price tag, the question that comes to mind now is whether you’d consider this Japanese car to stand toe to toe with the other “popular” sports car coming from German, Italy or even those American made at around a mall valet parking spot for yourself. It be an interesting choice, one that I’m curious to see when the next time I’m strolling around Pavilion or Star Hill mall where they usually gather.