When you’re Toyota and you’ve built perhaps the most exciting hot hatch in decades, any improvements are going to be a game of inches. The improvements made to the 2025 model year GR Corolla are minimal, but all the more impactful because of it. Toyota knew that it had a solid formula on its hands with the diminutive five-door chassis, all-wheel drive, and a manic 300-horsepower turbocharged three-cylinder under the hood. In a long tradition of Japanese rally-inspired all-wheel-drive monsters at an ostensibly affordable average new car buyer price point, the GRolla is the newest and maybe best of the bunch.
Toyota shipped me off to North Carolina for a morning of running around the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval as many laps as I wanted. The circuit was modified slightly to keep cars off the harshest rumble strips, and a second chicane was added to NASCAR turn 2 in order to keep speeds on the banking from getting out of hand, but it was still a pretty fast course with lots of opportunities to showcase the car’s acceleration and stability. In spite of the extra chicane, I still saw speeds up to 115 miles per hour on the banked oval.
Toyota flew me to Charlotte, North Carolina for a day with the updated GR Corolla and Sienna, and a tour of the company’s racing facilities in the region. They supplied me with a nice hotel room and a couple of nice meals.
For the 2025 model year, the biggest change in the GR Corolla lineup is the addition of a paddle-shifted 8-speed Toyota Gazoo Racing Direct Automatic Transmission (GR-DAT). For the enthusiasts who don’t care about clutches and manual transmissions, this is the next best thing. For the folks who only care about going fast on a track, this is the only way to buy your Corolla. Like many other manumatics that came before it, the technology is near telepathic. You don’t even need to shift yourself with paddles; my fastest laps with the Corolla came by leaving the car in its standard sport automatic mode.
If you were concerned that an automatic would make the little hot hatch feel lethargic, fear not. Toyota says it developed the 8-speed specifically in tune with the car’s Sport mode. It’s a close-ratio box that needs some quick hands to keep up with if you decide you want to shift it yourself via the wide and easily-reached paddles behind the wheel. It definitely makes the experience more Gran Turismo than real life, but if you’re not a manual enjoyer like me, the GRolla is now accessible to you. If you do want a manual, the six-speed’s new clutch is stronger and makes shifting quicker with more bite and earlier release.
Officially, Toyota says the manual and automatic GR Corolla have the same 0-to-60-mph sprint times of 4.9 seconds, but that’s patently absurd. Automatic buyers have access to a new launch control mode that helps the car shoot away from a stop. I did not have timing equipment with me on the track, so it’s difficult to say just how much quicker the launch control mode is, but it felt much faster. The car will only allow launches from a stop if the transmission is appropriately cool enough though, so you can’t just rip launch control starts all day long, but it’s a cool party trick regardless.
The no-back-seats Morizo edition is now dead, but fear not because every other model benefits from that car’s hiked 295 pound-feet of torque. I’m not sure you’d notice the extra torque unless you drove a 2024 model back-to-back with a 2025, but hey, more torque is more torque. In fact, Toyota also killed the Circuit model for 2025. If you want Toyota to build your car with a forged carbon roof, it’s now only available on the highest spec (and heaviest) Premium Plus model. Visually you can tell a 2025 model from its earlier siblings by the revised front bumper. Toyota had to make room for the GR-DAT’s transmission cooler, and there’s an option for an extra sub radiator if you’re frequently taking your Corolla to the track.
Something that early GR Corolla owners complained about was the car’s all-wheel-drive torque split. Prior to now, the car could split torque 60:40 in Front mode, 30:70 in Rear mode or 50:50 in Track mode, none of which made any sense at all. For 2025, Toyota modified the AWD modes to be a bit more logical. Normal is 60:40, Gravel is 50:50, and Track mode gives the car an ability to swing the split from 60:40 to 30:70 and everywhere in between depending on the car’s needs. Having variable torque split is always going to make for more traction, off-corner acceleration, and a quicker lap time over 50:50. Adding to the traction formula, all 2025 models get standard front and rear Torsen limited-slip differentials.
Following hundreds of hours of track testing and racing the GR Corolla in Japan’s Super Taikyu series, Toyota engineers have made some improvements to the car’s suspension. For example, each spring has been fitted with an extra helper spring to aid in rebound “to suppress inner wheel lift during energetic dynamic driving.” They also adjusted the rear spring rates and fitted new dampers to improve rear wheel traction and stability. The rear suspension mounting point has been moved upward ten millimeters to reduce rearward squat during hard acceleration. Again, these are probably most noticeable improvements when driven back-to-back with the outgoing model, but improvements nonetheless.
The GR Corolla probably wouldn’t be my first pick for track day lap time conquering, hell even Toyota’s own GR86 makes a more appropriate track machine, but it’s among the best out there when it comes to putting a smile on your face. This manic little bomb of a car is playful and willing, zingy and aggressive whenever you get down to business. The car’s three-cylinder shoves 300 horsepower directly into your back, and all four wheels scrabble for traction at the exit of every corner, handing each other control when the situation demands. There’s flavors of old Mitubishi Evo in this thing.
Toyota, either not confident in my abilities as a driver or not confident in the car’s ability to string together multiple laps, didn’t allow me to run down the front stretch of the NASCAR oval, instead requiring a cooldown run on pit lane after every two-thirds lap of the track. I know I wouldn’t have run lap times competitive with the NASCAR stock cars that ran here the week prior, but it would have been fun to compare. As it was, the track felt like a really big autocross course and had some real fun corners. The exit from the infield road course back up onto the banking was my favorite, as it was a tight low-speed left hander, which is exactly the kind of thing at which a rally homologation-based hot hatch will excel. Stepping the back out under braking, I got the car to rotate a bit around the front left corner, and punched my foot down to get all four wheels working in concert to shoot the car up the wall of NASCAR oval ahead of me. It was all so damned exciting.
The GR Corolla isn’t the perfect car, but it’s damn close. The manual transmission requires a bit of patience. I found slamming home the 2-3 upshift at speed in a hurried manner particularly difficult, for example. And at nearly 3,350 pounds for the heaviest examples, it’s getting a bit chunky for my tastes. But if you are looking for something fun out of Japan that doesn’t require much in the way of daily driver sacrifice, the list of complaints I have about the GR Corolla is laughably short.
Pricing for 2025 is slightly up over 2024 with the new base price ringing in at $39,995, which includes the $1,135 processing and handling fee, for a Core model with a 6-speed manual. The Premium model, which adds premium audio, dual-zone climate control, heated suede-trimmed seats and parking sensors, will cost you $42,575. If you want the full boat Premium Plus model with the carbon roof, optional extra radiator, matte black wheels, and a HUD, it’ll run you $46,650. The 8-speed auto will run you an extra $2,000 in all trims.
Hot hatches are practically a thing of the past, so when one comes along that essentially redefines the genre, it’s proof that the world is healing. This car is an appropriate replacement for stimulants, and taken directly to the brain twice daily will probably improve your outlook on life. Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy a Toyota GR Corolla.