The Toyota GR Corolla may be the purest example of a driver’s car.
If you don’t care particularly much about cars, another Toyota Corolla sounds profoundly unexciting. But the GR Corolla packs 300 horsepower, all-wheel drive (AWD) with a 60/40 split, big brakes, and race-car-quick steering into a tiny car.
It packs shocking athleticism into a tiny frame, like Simone Biles training for Paris.
For 2025, it will be accessible to more people. Toyota is calling the 2025 GR Corolla “evolved.” But this isn’t a redesign. The little hot hatch is still too new for that.
It’s not too new for a few updates, though. For 2025, the once-manual-only Gazoo Racing Corolla will get an available automatic transmission. It’s an 8-speed, all-new one with some innovative technology behind it: It can read your mind.
Toyota explains, “Different than the GR Supra and GR86 automatic transmissions where gear shifting relies on sensing vehicle behavior, such as deceleration g-force and speed,” the new 8-speed “senses the way the driver steps on the brakes and operates the accelerator. With these inputs, it anticipates when gear shifting is optimal even before changes in vehicle behavior occur, achieving gear selection that reflects the driver’s intentions and, thus, leads to shifting that is similar to that of professional drivers.”
Toyota hasn’t listed prices for the 2025 GR Corolla, which is set to arrive at dealerships this winter. The 2024 model starts at $37,595. But it’s in high demand and rare, so dealer markups are the norm with this car.
The GR Corolla also gets a torque boost for 2025. Horsepower remains at 300, but torque rises from 273 lb-ft to 295.
There wasn’t much room for improvement in the current GR, but Toyota says engineers “wanted to improve traction during hard cornering, so they added rebound springs to the front and rear suspension to suppress inner wheel lift during energetic dynamic driving.” New rear coils and stabilizers help with the effort.
Visible changes are minor. They include a redesigned front bumper (Toyota says the changes help with cooling), new brake ducts, and a new air curtain designed to reduce turbulence around the tires.
The 2025 GR Corolla will come in three trim levels – Core, Premium, and new Premium Plus.
