Toyota has had recent success expanding its Corolla line. Think everything from Corolla Cross to the GR Corolla. The old econobox label, we hardly knew you! But the current E210 Corolla platform dates back to 2018, and while Toyota product life cycles tend to be longer than some other brands, it’s certainly time for a Corolla reboot.
What Toyota has shown so far, ahead of an unveiling at the upcoming Japan Mobility Show, definitely seems like a clear breakthrough, and here’s some of what we think that means.
New Corolla not like the current Corolla
Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda sat down for a YouTube conversation on Monday to talk about future products. Most of what he revealed was cryptic. Clips of the new Corolla Concept only appeared during the outro, serving as a reminder that Toyota is primarily concerned with cars for the masses, not supercars. You can’t make halo cars if you don’t make basic transportation for the world.
This ad was a tribute to the millions of customers who, over six decades, made the Corolla the best-selling car in history. The translated script reads: “Toyota makes things focused on you. What you are passionate about. What will help you. What will set you free.”
If the Corolla is about anything, it’s mass transportation, harkening back to Japan’s heyday as a prodigious manufacturing powerhouse. Today, Corollas sold in the US are made in both Mississippi and Canada.
A different kind of flower crown
The Corolla Concept is just a teaser, but the front end looks like a more rakish bZ, with chiseled sidewalls and a sportier, futuristic, swept-back roofline. A full-width LED sweeps across the hood, which has no grille, so a good guess would be that the next Corolla will at least be a hybrid.
In the video clip and opening image of this article, you can also see a charging port on the driver’s side front fender.
Never read too much into concepts
Please note, this is a concept. The only thing we can link to facts is that the Corolla turns 60 next year, and all car manufacturers like to celebrate anniversaries with something special. It’s hard to look at this concept and imagine a next generation Corolla Cross or GR Corolla emerging from its loins, even though that’s not actually the case. That difficult.
A small crossover of a square rear makes sense. And at least from a sporting point of view, especially if you replaced the non-grille with an active one, you could imagine a GR Coupé (omit the second set of doors if that helps).
What’s actually the hardest to sell in the US is the sedan, because we just don’t buy them anymore. Still, time will tell. When we first saw the Crown released for the US market, it didn’t look much like the production car either. And now it’s selling well.
A century = a new crown? Or a new LS?
Toyota also showed a new Century concept. We won’t get the Century in the US, although Toyota did build an SUV version of the Century on the same platform as the Lexus TX. This coupe concept will also appear at the Japan Mobility Show in a few weeks.
More like a Lexus
The concept has a set of sliding doors for a ‘show car’, which in principle will never come into production. But if we ignore that bait, this could very well herald a new luxury sedan for the world. Toyota has kept the Century as a Japan-only product, but the rate of adoption is small, and it makes much more sense to have a JDM Century and pair what comes next with a future Lexus chassis.
Coupes are also pure show bait, as they are also sold in small numbers, and this large vehicle, if anything, looks like a hybrid luxury crossover underneath all the distracting eye candy.
TopSpeed’s opinion
The video teaser also showed off a radical six-wheeled Lexus van concept. It’s…interesting. We already know that no luxury brand will ever attempt a van again, right? Hello Mercedes-Benz R Cass.
What you can count on, at least in the US, is that there will be a new Corolla, and possibly Toyota will also tease something like a new Celica, since we’re pretty sure that was also part of the teaser, and that’s a nameplate that Toyota could use to expand its GR character beyond the GR86 and GR Corolla.
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