2025 | car reviews | toyota | toyota gr corolla
The Toyota GR Corolla has all the makings of a great hot hatch: a small, turbocharged engine with ample horsepower, all-wheel drive, performance brakes and suspension, and aggressive styling. For its first two years, it came solely with a manual transmission. Now, a new, fast-shifting automatic does not disappoint and opens the car up to many more buyers.
While the GR Corolla shares part of its name and rolls on the same TNGA-C platform as Toyota’s entry-level hatchback, it’s a whole different car when it comes to performance and driving dynamics. Developed in collaboration with Toyota’s Gazoo Racing division, the car features some significant upgrades compared to a stock Corolla hatch. Even from the outside, its differences are notable. It has functional air ducts on its hood and front fenders and rolls on 18-inch black rims wrapped in grippy Michelin Pilot Sport 4 rubber. 14-inch front disc brakes with 4-piston calipers and 11.7-inch rear discs with 2-piston units provide excellent stopping power.
The real magic happens thanks to the GR Corolla’s 1.6-liter, 3-cylinder turbocharged engine. Despite its diminutive size, this tiny beast outputs up to 300 horsepower and 295 lb-ft. of torque. Power heads to the wheels via either a 6-speed manual or 8-speed automatic transmission. While the automatic version weighs about 50 pounds more than the manual, any difference in acceleration is negligible, with both cars doing 0-to-60 in about 5 seconds. While we didn’t get to push this car on a race track, it’s got a rated top speed of 142.9 mph.
From a dead stop, the GR Corolla launches fast and offers fantastic traction. Its GR-FOUR all-wheel-drive system defaults to a front-biased 60:40 split but can send up to 70% of torque to the rear wheels in Track mode. Standard front and rear Torsen limited-slip differentials help ensure torque is properly distributed across the wheels for optimal cornering. Coming around sharp turns at speed, the car is impressive and never feels like it will break loose. The sport-tuned suspension has MacPherson-type struts up front and a double-wishbones multilink setup in the rear. Combined with a beefed-up stabilizer bar and rear strut brace, it offers great road feedback, as well as impressive stiffness and stability. The new 8-speed automatic transmission is stellar, detecting when you’re cornering or accelerating aggressively, and holds gears right up to the 7000 RPM redline as needed. While no automatic is as engaging as a row-your-own manual, this one is sharp, smart, and even more entertaining when you engage the paddle shifters.
This hatchback looks great from every angle, but we especially enjoy checking out its rear end, which incorporates an aerodynamic diffuser surrounding its triple-pipe exhaust. While the car’s exhaust note isn’t as soul-stirring as that of a larger engine with more cylinders, it still provides a pleasing amount of feedback when accelerating and will crackle a bit at higher revs. That said, aftermarket exhaust options can make the GR Corolla sound like a pro rally race car.
Our Premium Plus test vehicle included upgrades like a raised hood, matte-finish 18-inch wheels, a gloss black rear spoiler, a black sharkfin antenna, and a forged carbon-fiber roof. While it doesn’t reduce weight meaningfully compared to the standard metal roof, it does look awesome in person.
Inside, the Premium Plus grade has upgraded seating surfaces covered with a suede material called Brin Naub and trimmed with convincing synthetic leather. The sports seats offer excellent bolstering and support to keep you planted firmly on track days. The center console houses a floor-mounted gear shifter, a real mechanical handbrake, and switchgear for selecting drive modes and adjusting the AWD system between its Normal, Gravel, and Track modes. As far as tech features go, you get a 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster, a head-up display, an 8-inch touchscreen running the latest Toyota Multimedia system with wireless AirPlay and Android Auto, Toyota Safety Sense 3.0. An 8-speaker JBL audio system punches above its class. There’s also a wireless phone charger, but the iPhone 16 Pro Max we tested kept losing connectivity with the charger despite wearing only a slim, Magsafe-compatible case.
Red accents on the seatbacks, door panels, steering wheel, and shifter add to the sporty look of the interior, as do the embroidered GR logos on the headrests. Beyond that, the interior is pretty basic, consisting mostly of plastics in various textures. We would have liked to have seen some carbon fiber or aluminum trim in a sports car that can cost more than $50,000.
Like other Corollas, the rear seat is suitable for kids and shorter adults. The headroom and shoulder room are good, but the knee room is limited. These seats have the same premium surfaces as the front ones. We’d like to see at least one charging port for rear-seat passengers, but alas, there are none. There are two USB-C charging ports up front, so you could always run an extension cable to the back.
As a hatchback, you get better than sedan cargo space, with 17.8 cubic feet behind the rear seats. Like the standard Corolla Hatchback, the rear seats can fold in a 60/40 split, but carrying space is restricted because of the optional rear chassis brace installed in our test car. With the brace in place, you can still pass through long and skinny items like skis or hockey sticks. If you plan on taking the car to the track, there is enough room for four tires mounted on rims in front of the bar with the back seat folded.
The first time we drove the 12th-generation Corolla Hatchback, we hoped that Toyota would someday make a souped-up version. With the GR Corolla, they gave us more than we could have ever asked for. Its small but mighty engine is a powerhouse, and it handles brilliantly. It corners like a dream, and its steering is crisp and direct. It’s surprisingly comfortable as a daily driver, too. Like many things, the price for the GR Corolla has crept up since its launch in 2023, and the tricked-out Premium Plus grade with the automatic has the highest base price of the bunch – $47,515. A handful of options and fees brought the final sticker price to $50,433. That said, you can get into a GR Corolla Core with a manual for as little as $38,860, and you still get the same excellent engine, suspension, AWD system, differentials, and brakes.