Over the last week or so, some rather exciting rumours have popped up online after the Toyota GR Corolla was papped testing at the Nürburgring: is the GR Yaris’ bigger sibling, which we’ve been denied in Europe since it launched in 2022, finally heading to our shores?
Well, we hate to be cynical, but we suspect probably not. The Nürburgring is an absolute gift to car companies setting up a performance model – a 13-mile stretch of bumpy, unforgiving tarmac that’s free from speed limits and throws just about every type of corner possible at a car, plus a very long straight and a couple of knackered bits of concrete.
Toyota GR Corolla – front detail
In other words, it’s the place to go if you’re developing a performance car – regardless of where it’s going to be sold. This is far from the first time a car’s made headlines at the ’Ring, only to be conspicuously absent from the European market. Ahead of the launch of the second-generation Cadillac CTS-V in 2009, a great deal was made of the fact it broke the then-record for saloon cars around the German track. That car, though, never made it beyond North America.
The R34 Nissan GT-R even received a model – the V-Spec II Nür – named for the development work that took place at the track, but that remained very much a Japan-only edition. Same goes for Toyota’s very own GT86 GRMN and GRMN Yaris – more hardcore versions of the GT86 and GR Yaris. That name stands for the rather clunky ‘Gazoo Racing tuned by Meister of the Nürburgring’ – you can’t really call a car that without developing it at the Nürburgring, but both remained Japan-exclusive.
Toyota GR Corolla – front
And there’s a good chance that a GRMN Corolla is what has been spotted, especially as one of the prototypes is wearing a bigger rear wing and has a roll cage in the back. The cars are wearing German plates, but that’s probably nothing to read too much into. The European wing of Toyota’s Gazoo Racing motorsport outfit, which runs the manufacturer’s WEC team and builds its WRC engines, is based in Cologne, after all. The cars running around the ’Ring are right-hand drive, suggesting they’re probably Japanese-market models.
We’ll very happily be proven wrong on this one – in fact, we’re hoping we are. The recipe of the GR Yaris’ wonderful powertrain in a more practical five-door body is unquestionably enticing. Even if the Corolla was to come here, though, it’d likely be sold in highly limited numbers and for somewhere north of £50,000, if the Yaris is anything to go by. European emissions rules mean that power from its 1.6-litre turbocharged three-pot would also likely be knocked down to 276bhp from the 300bhp it gets globally, as is the case with the Euro GR Yaris versus its Japanese counterpart.
Toyota GR Corolla – rear
We asked Toyota for a comment on the rumours, but they simply confirmed our assumption they couldn’t say anything. It’s not a no, but also definitely not a yes.
For now, then, we’re very much pressing X to doubt this at the moment. And now we’ve said that, we’re probably going to look really silly in about a month when Toyota announces a triumphant European debut for the GR Corolla.
