Toyota’s GR Corolla is the sort of hot hatch that seems like it was built in a lab as the answer to the question, “What, exactly, would get the modern automotive enthusiast as excited as possible?” It’s full of traits we adore, from an adjustable all-wheel-drive system to a manual gearbox to a funky little three-cylinder engine that somehow punches out 300 horsepower, all in that awesome hot hatch form factor.
And there’s an even faster one coming. At a recent product blowout at and around Toyota’s North American headquarters in Plano, Texas, we had a chance to hop in the passenger seat of a heavily camouflaged GR Corolla for a hot lap around Eagles Canyon Raceway in Decatur, Texas.
Behind the wheel was Hiroaki Ishiura, one of the top development drivers for Toyota Gazoo Racing, the automaker’s competitive outfit. Ishiura-san has wheel time in many cars at many tracks, including alongside Akio Toyoda at the 2011 running of the Nürburgring 24 Hours, where the Toyota team took a class victory. Ishiura-san is also one of the lead development drivers for Toyota’s GR line, so he’s been instrumental in making cars like the GR Corolla and the GR Yaris feel as special as they do.
Back to the camouflaged development car: Toyota wouldn’t give us much, aside from a lap in the right seat and whatever time we could scrounge to look over the car. Looking the thing over, I could see a few hints that pointed to this being the most extreme version of the GR Corolla yet.
Up front, the hood featured considerably more venting than either of the hoods that you get on current GR Corollas. Core and Premium models get a normal, non-vented hood, while the Premium Plus version gets a hood with a slight bulge and two small vents. This development car had the hood bulge but also had a set of large vents stretching side to side, hinting that there’s a change underwood that prompted Toyota to seek more heat relief.
Likewise, the development car also featured fender vents over both of the front wheels. Typically, fender vents like this exist to reduce pressure built up in the wheel wells, but sometimes they also act as flow routing for air out from brake cooling ducts or even small intercoolers for things like transmissions or differentials.
Most notably, the car featured an adjustable rear wing. There looked to be around six or seven different settings, each incrementally adjusting the angle of the rear wing to influence downforce. If this feature makes it to production, this version of the GR Corolla would be the only Toyota product sold in the U.S. with an adjustable rear wing.
When this development mule was revealed back in April, Toyota said that the car was “expected to have improved aerodynamic performance, a bump in torque, and unique tuning.” Judging by the new bodywork, that first point seems viable.
As for the other two traits, we were able to suss out a bit of each on track. Ishiura-san sure didn’t feel like he was holding anything back, hammering the little hatchback up and over curbs to help it rotate and running each gear to near redline. The GR Corollas you can buy at a dealer today produce 295 lb-ft of torque from that little three pot; I lapped a few of the normal ones, and this camo’ed mule felt like it had a mild bump in torque. It seemed to scamper out of corners with more verve.
The revised tuning is almost certainly to make the car even more aggressive—stiffer, and perhaps sharper on turn-in. That will be a plus, because I found the production GR Corolla to be a bit hesitant to rotate at times. I’m half the driver that other members of our team are, but I called managing editor Eddy Eckart, who went on the first drive the automatic GR Corolla last year, to confirm what I was feeling. He agreed that the existing ones tend toward understeer.
In “Track” mode, the GR Corolla’s electronically-controlled multiplate center differential clutch can send up to 70 percent of the engine’s torque to the rear wheels. Perhaps the new tuning will enable even more of the available torque to head to the rear, essentially encouraging a cornering attitude even more like a rear-drive vehicle than it already does with a 70/30 split.
It’s all hypothetical for now—everything but the bodywork, at least, which we’re quite confident is finalized. Still, to see an automaker like Toyota—famously conservative and measured in its approach to development—spend real money and expertise to improve a fringe product like the GR Corolla is cause for celebration. It could have simply unveiled the hot hatch, stepped back, and let market forces slowly squelch the little rascal over time. Whether or not you wind up with one in your driveway, that effort feels commendable in an increasingly difficult industry landscape.
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