Review: The Toyota GR Corolla is the result of when heart and soul meets science

Unique words tell a lot about a society. Have you heard of kaffeklatsch? It's a German slang for 'gossip over coffee'. Oddly specific as it is, it makes sense that it's coined by the people who invented drip coffee making, spilling a different kind of beans while another brews over...

Fly to the other side of the world and thumb through their no less enigmatic dictionary, and you'll note that somewhere along the ideas of 'dear wife' and 'cherished pet', the Japanese have a place in the pages for the machine in the porch – ai-sha (愛車).

It stands for 'beloved car'. Usually semantics don't weigh too much, but the phrase is a perfect snapshot of the people and mentality behind the Toyota GR Corolla, and as such it absolutely should colour your view of the rest of this story.

Dedicated to a dream

Arguably none would know a whole lot better about that than Akio Toyoda.

"A Corolla is a car that will become someone's story. "It's an important model that has supported the Toyota brand, and when I became president, I made up my mind that the Corolla needs to rise again," that was the promise, and that was what he saw came true in his 14-year reign as company President, who now serves as the Chairman of the carmaker that bears his family name.

Also read: Akio Toyoda swaps CEO duties for Chairman post, Lexus LC's father Koji Sato is the new boss of Toyota

Put it that way and it becomes crystalline that the GR Corolla is a love letter penned from Morizo to the world, each sentence reminiscent of both scant and well-worn racing lines through tarmac, through dirt.

After all, it's a Corolla that brought Toyota's first-ever World Rally Championship (WRC) win in 1973. Endurance racing gongs would start coming in 1983 – what else if it wasn't by the venerable AE86? – setting the tone for a story that continues till today, as the GR Corolla carries on its forefathers' legacy while deftly navigating the challenges of carbon neutrality.

Also read: Back from the dead, this Toyota GR Corolla made history as world's first liquid hydrogen racer to complete an endurance race

For the most part, the cars that brought Toyota's early victories were built with a 'win on Sunday, sell on Monday' mentality. Today's GR Corolla has lost none of that charm; the cosetting leather-suede seats, easy ergonomics, and yes, your Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity makes it easy to forget that you're in something that will leap to 100 km/h from nought in 5.3 seconds.

And just like how the best cars are never one-dimensional affairs, the GR Corolla can be a drama-free car. Disciplined, composed, keeps your teeth firmly unclattered, taking a trip to the shops in this isn't daunting, thanks to the forgiving clutch and excellent suspension.

Heck, if you want to take it chill the whole way and let Dynamic Radar Cruise Control do its thing, you can too; Toyota Safety Sense 3.0 is standard fitment. But we reckon that won't be for long – once you've dropped your groceries at home, you're going to prod the buzzy turbocharged mill as it hurtles the horizon onto you, exposing the other side of the GR Corolla that every self-proclaimed petrolhead needs to experience at least once.

Thread it through a set of corners and the GR Corolla works up quite the appetite; bespoke GR-Four all-wheel drive system and the two Torsen limited-slip differentials claw grip from places where lesser cars would've waved their figurative white flags.

Also read: Toyota GR Yaris “Morizo Selection” to be able of “retune” itself to suit its driver

This is a car that lives to beat the snot out of corners and that it will do day in, day out – you'll happily seek B-roads every chance you can to engage with the communicative steering and poised, balanced chassis.

Prefer to go through things sideways in a plume of smoke? Flick the GR-Four dial to make a 30-front, 70-rear torque split then. Point is, this is a car that you can mould to your liking, but at the same time it'll mould you as a driver too.

Also read: To continue his teacher's dream, Akio Toyoda is racing in Thailand to show 5 solutions are better than 1

Power and torque – a rich 300 PS and 370 Nm – delivered on-call with each firm squeeze of the accelerator, is rewarded with a sonorous howl of the three-pot's bassy tone, turbo flutter adding drama with each strike of the shifter.

Remember – Toyota's struck this balance between daily-driver comfort and corner-carving menace without adaptive this, adjustable that. Such finely tuned, pure mechanical genius, also means that it's a setup that will last a very, very long time.

It takes an almost sixth-sense level of keenness to convey from human to machine, and that's why racing drivers such as Toyoda himself and Gazoo Racing Super GT driver Hiroaki Ishiura were instrumental in every step of the car's development.

Besides honing its on-road character, it's also how the GR Corolla got more power. Ishiura says to Japanese media, "When I first got in the car, the engine power was the same specification as the GR Yaris (261 PS / 360 Nm), and honestly, I felt that the acceleration was a bit lacking. Other drivers felt the same way. So, I wrote my report with restrained comments."

One Corolla to rule them all

Why was he reserved in his comments? Ishiura explains, "I thought it would be difficult to get more power from a 1.6-liter engine and ended up making a comment along those lines." Master Driver Morizo wasn't letting things slide: "You shouldn't be concerned about such things when making comments."

Hence, development of the GR Corolla was similar to an engineering blank slate. Chief Engineer Naoyuki Sakomoto recalls that the car wasn't confined to pre-determined goals, nor were any potential improvements brushed aside in the name of cost. It's all measure twice and cut once.

Agile development then was the name of the game. President Toyoda's hell-bent pursuit on returning an 'untamed energy' to the Corolla (Sakomoto admits the Corolla's sporting nature had 'faded around year 2000'), and his focus on "creating ever-better cars" culminated in today's GR Corolla.

Also read: Every bit helps: How Toyota's multi-pathway approach can help Malaysia decarbonise

Cue then a complement of uprated internals and exploration of AI technologies in the Motomachi plant where the car is built to virtually eliminate tolerance guesswork, with each part fitting perfectly. But above all, my favourite bit has got to be the tri-exit exhaust that's in essence, a factory-fitted straight-pipe setup.

"The centre one is for high-power," said Sakamoto in an interview with The Drive. "Above a certain engine rpm, there is a valve. So they open that and it goes straight to the outside of the car, which reduces the backpressure and achieves the 300 horsepower."

It's also credited to allow engineers to crank boost higher, up to a heady 25 psi, and way more than most turbo cars that top out at 15 psi. Joyfully, this also means there's none of that fake sound nonsense; the cacophony being fully organic. Ode to the purists it is.

Points to ponder

In spite of everything else it does beautifully, it's not all Goldilocks for the GR Corolla. The focus on making it fast above all else comes across as a little heavy-handed, obvious in the aesthetics – those looking for something subtler may find the bulges and the Cheshire cat face a bit...strong.

There are rivals that can match it in firepower, yet virtually blend in in everyday traffic. The Volkswagen Golf R, now in cheaper CKD form, comes to mind.

Much the same goes to the interior, and while we maintain that it aces driver focus, a bigger helping of soft-touch materials to neutralise the hard plastics all around, and an armrest (that actually serves as a more practical cubby) would not have gone unappreciated..

Verdict

The big picture, as they say, is made up by little brush strokes, and in them is how the GR Corolla should be appreciated. Its veracity is best experienced by yourself, feeling the pull as boost kicks in, witnessing it eke traction where logic says there shouldn't be any, and yet behaves well enough after all that to bring you and yours for a jaunt around town.

Perhaps, what makes the Toyota GR Corolla special is its honesty: none of it feels like it's built to preach to a choir, let alone just put together simply to prove Toyota isn't 'boring' (used loosely) anymore. The story of its development is in itself a snapshot of the dedication required to bring it to fruition.

The 'untamed energy' of everyone that made it happen – not forgetting Akio Toyoda's leadership – has resulted in something truly special in an era that's increasingly eager to close the door on cars like this.

You know how it's often said that there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them? Some of us may have missed the classic JDM boat, but the GR Corolla is here give us all a second chance to experience ai-sha, personified.

Also read: Review: 2023 Toyota GR86 - The 'L' license car for keen drivers