What’s the best-selling car ever? If you define it by a single generation, it’s the Volkswagen Beetle, but if you define it by a nameplate, it’s the Toyota Corolla. We’re talking more than 50 million sold on every corner of this Earth, to people from all walks of life. Teachers, soldiers, criminals, the lot. It really is the default answer when much of the world wants to buy a car, and at this year’s Japan Mobility Show, Toyota gave us a glimpse at where the Corolla is going.
On first glance, there’s a whiff of post-recession to the appearance of this concept car, from the plunging beltline to the chamfered surfacing on the lower doors. Tropes we’ve seen before many moons ago, all but forgotten about, and are now almost reminiscing over. As a result, the Corolla concept isn’t exactly elegant from all angles, but the Corolla Furia Concept of 2013 taught us that proportions and surfacing can change for the better from concept to production.
Truthfully, I’m quite hoping it’s a five-door liftback for a couple of reasons. I mean, the silhouette certainly suggests it, and a liftback would be a practicality boost over a standard sedan, but I can’t imagine trying to stuff anything large in the back if we’re looking at a mail-slot trunk lid. At the same time, I do like the enormous Lucid Air-like windshield. More glass means more susceptibility to rock chips, sure, but also a greater connectedness to the world around you.
Speaking of changes, don’t expect the future Corolla’s interior to look like this. Console like a podium, huge pods coming off the gauge cluster, touchscreen way over on the passenger side? Come on. Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a flat floor in the next Corolla, and while everything in here is exaggerated, you can get a sense of what might be going on if you squint a bit. The one thing I hope survives the trip from concept to production? A tiny Corolla-shaped shifter. How whimsical.
As for motive power, there is something on the Corolla concept that makes me curious: the absolute shedload of either fuel filler doors, charging port doors, or both. We’re talking one in each front fender plus one in the left rear quarter-panel. According to Toyota, “Technological innovation enables the flexibility for Corolla Concept to be a battery-electric vehicle (BEV), plug-in hybrid (PHEV), hybrid (HEV), or internal combustion engine vehicle,” and although this concept probably doesn’t try to roll all of these things into one demonstrator, the next Corolla should be as green as you want it to be.
With the production-spec Corolla as we know it knocking on the door of eight years old, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a new one relatively soon-ish. While the Corolla Concept might look far-out, strip away some of the concept car fripperies, and we might actually be looking at Toyota’s next-generation compact. Consider this a new headlight pattern to recognize when your Uber rolls up in the dark.
Top graphic image: Toyota
A Corolla shaped shifter! Toyota must have read Torch’s piece on the car shaped controls thing. Should be here in this site somewhere
I recently rented a current gen Corolla and a current gen Nissan Sentra back to back and honestly, the Sentra was a far better drive. How they hold up over 200 thousand miles is something that will take time to analyze.
The current Corolla is one of the most balanced, elegant, good looking cars on the market. It’s refreshing in the sea of HyunKias which look like an army of tofu pieces fought against fought against Victorinox. And I own HyunKias.
If I had money to burn I’d pay someone to build me a two door coupe based on the current sedan, with some dreamy powertrain.
It would be sad if this thing replaces it. Or anything closely related to it, for that matter.
Especially the European Corolla Hybrid Touring Wagon.
Ditto. Saw plenty in Italy this summer.
Unfortunately they are assembled locally and can’t make it here easily.
Here in Australia we can order the wagon as a grey market import but its the japanese version touring which is based on the hatch wheelbase rather than the european longer (75mm) which makes it a bit tight in the back otherwise I would be getting one this weekend.
Are they going to quote rear headroom at the peak of the jellybean or where someone is actually sitting in the seat? It drives me crazy everyone is sloping the rear headroom down before the actual seats – because so many times I can fit vertically farther forward in a car, but not if I actually sit back in my seat in the rear of a car. No issue with legroom, just with torso.
Rear seats are empty most of the time.
By that logic we shouldn’t have headlights because most driving is done during the day. If I’m buying a four-door car, I want usable back seats.
Ugh. What is with all these thick C-pillar concepts?
eek
The profile looks very similer to the new prius but with a taller roof and a less steep roof-line. i guess the corolla can afford to be a bit more normal/dorkey because it sells itself as the super utilitarian budget car. I hope they all are hatchbacks instead of sedans tho!
Just extend that roof a little more to make it a wagon, put the GRC engine in it, and I’ll buy it.
Overwrought incoherent busy mess.
I’m gonna guess this Corolla concept is inside out, where the styling motifs of the bland interior and angular overstyled interior will switch places on the production model.
The pontoon fenders are trying too hard. Why is there a glowing pee-pee on the console?
IMHO to make the Camry perfect it needs to retain Toyota reliability, have two row seating, and be a station wagon where the rear opens like a Hatch instead of just the rear.
Bishop get on that.
Put a lift kit on it and call it something Scottish! Then it will really sell.
“call it something Scottish!”
I dunno, I think the Toyota Haggis would be a more appropriate for a parts bin special.
If it was 10 years ago, I would advertise it with a Frenchman pretending to be Scottish and Sean Connery as a Spainard.
Maybe for the EV. They could use it to pulverize the others and have the energy bolts released charge them and the Toyota.
Yeah, but there Can Be Only One, of those.
However, being a Toyota, it would never die.
Oh I dunno. I hear some Prius have a real problem keeping their heads on:
https://www.gasketmasters.com/head-gasket-replacement
So did Sean Connery when he played a Spainard.
I like it, obviously the interior won’t look like that but if the exterior looks like this then I’m all about it.
Related, my partners boss apparently leases her Corolla (who does that?) and is planning on turning it in and leasing another Corolla. Of the same generation. Wtf.
Is the company paying for the leases?
Nope! She’s a store manager so no company cars.
There are three kinds of risk adverse car shoppers:
Buying a Corolla is Risk Adverse. Leasing a car (of any type) is risk adverse. Leasing a Corolla is double Risk adverse.
That’s like wearing steel toed shoes in the shower, just in case you drop a bar of soap.
A fresh bar of Ivory can cause some serious metatarsal damage!
Hmm, might not be that far off from production… this has mirrors, cut lines, door handles, and a very awkwardly-resolved rear windshield. Considering how big a swing the current Prius is, I wonder if this is the nearly-there design.
I quite like the exterior, but man, would that ICE engine apparently be shoved waaaay back under the cowl/windshield because that hood looks tiny.
My head cannon is that Toyota’s way to design cars 10 years ago was to take a clay model of a car and put it in an enclosure with about 100 chimpanzees that were fed Red Bull and Meth, issued ugly sticks and unleashed on the clay model.
With recent Toyota Styling, I was starting to wonder about what happened to all those more chimps.
But then I saw the back of this Corolla and can rest easy knowing that the Toyota Ugly Stick Chimp Brigade is in fine fettle.
So the Toyota Chimpanzees are into anal? Design!
As Corollas go, this is quite nice. That being said…
Did the entire design department of Faraday Future migrate to Japan?
It’s not in Toyota’s habit (more of a Chrysler/Jeep thing) but I for one would love it if once the new Corolla comes out (whatever it looks like, we’ll all get used to it eventually due to how common it will be) that they’d decide to keep the current gen Corolla hatch going at a reduced price (since the tooling has got to be paid for by now) in just a single trim/few colors, preferably with the hybrid drivetrain from the Corolla sedan. The only downside to the hatch is that it’s a bit small in back but still better than a trunk, and it drives so well on the TNGA platform, I’d seriously consider a new one (since used prices for them since 2019 are still so high) if they could manage to get it back into the low $20Ks.
I know it won’t happen, but a guy can dream. The Corolla hatch comes in that happy bright blue too.
This is actually something Toyota does do in other countries! In India the current Innova Hycross is still sold alongside the older Innova Crysta. The reason the Innova even got a surname is because the generation prior to the Crysta was sold alongside the it when that was first introduced.