2023 Toyota GR Corolla Review // DRAG RACE + LAP TIMES

it's such a disappointment i don't know how we're going to tell everyone it wasn't that hard no the ingredients were there all-wheel drive yep so i could probably handle the snow right corolla name plate reliability yeah and it comes with a manual yeah i'm being honest it doesn't really tell you that much though no i bet that gr corolla's going to be pretty cool oh yeah i'm excited for that yeah [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] you're watching throttle house i'm thomas and i'm james and that's the gr corolla [Applause] g r meaning gazoo racing which in this case turns a normal economy hatchback into a corner-crushing turbocharged rally-derived hatchback-shaped also one that costs 54 000 canadian as spec and this is somehow not even the most expensive one but the gr badge means that stuffed inside that swollen hood is the turbocharged three-cylinder engine from the gr yaris an engine that until now has been forbidden fruit for north americans and in the corolla thanks to a triple exhaust and 25.2 psi of boost it produces 300 horsepower and 273 pound-feet of torque this is the circuit edition so it gets even more standard goodies like the very necessary option of the front and rear limited slip differentials in any trim though the gr corolla is a manual only all-wheel drive stiffened toyota hot hatch all signs point to greatness but to achieve greatness you must first defeat your enemies and there are quite a few of them let's do this and if you're new to throttle house [Applause] we do car reviews track tests and quite a lot of messing about so subscribe hit the bell [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay in many ways this is just a corolla the ride is quite harsh it's not soft but it's not a deal breaker and for the performance it's a worthy trade-off but i commuted here on the highway today and it's economical i was getting 7.5 liters per hundred kilometers so 31 miles per gallon the steering wasn't twitchy it was easy to keep straight the cabin noise wasn't loud i was worried that that would be a big issue but highway conversations at speed are easy everything about this car is just if you want it to be safe visibility is good it's a toyota so you assume reliability and in fact the engine in this from the gi yaris has been stress tested pretty aggressively and it's done very well the value is probably going to keep because there's so much hype around the car it has lane centering assist and adaptive crews which are both very good it has blind spot detection if you gave this to your grandma and she didn't go above 4000 rpm then apart from the ride and maybe the boomi exhaust at just traffic light speeds she wouldn't know the difference that's how normal the gr corolla can be but it is a gr corolla and you've spent the money and this is the circuit pack so we want to know what happens when you take it to a circuit oh it's good yeah it's good on the street this can be so tame but you can feel the all-wheel drive system crawling out of the corners on the street you can have this in 60 40 mode 60 of the torque is going to the front but the gr corolla has a special drive system so if i twist this it changes it to 70 of the torque going to the rear it does that because when that rear diff is fully locked up it over drives the rear wheels that means that they're moving faster than the front wheels so in theory i can do this okay so there's a lot of there's a lot of grip in here and a lot of understeer in it no it's not it doesn't want to oversteer not an oversteer machine plan b i have a handbrake i know what you're thinking juvenile no rally cars so yeah unfortunately even though it can send 70 to the rear it seems like the gr corolla doesn't have quite enough torque to get all of the wheels spinning especially on dry tarmac let's be honest with ourselves how many front-wheel drive based hatchbacks can actually lose the rear end on command the answer is very few welcome to the few okay this might not have the same type of all-wheel drive system that james's has this can only put 50 of the torque to the rear wheels but with some rear differential trickery the new golf r can put 100 of that torque to one of the rear wheels so it can kick the tail out like this yes and around the track this feels quick i'm going to put it in nurburgring mode which doesn't want to kick the tail out as much but it softens the suspension and it's great for a little bumpy track like ours which means i should be able to catch james and overtake him [Music] okay i see how this is gonna go come at me bro okay i'm going to switch this into track mode so it's 50 50 front and rear optimum speed and it does feel better balance in track mode i've got more front grip the steering is very good when i come off center i immediately know where my front wheels are the three cylinder has a great sound to it it growls and you can force it to make turbo sound not unlike a 300 000 maserati mc20 [Music] and that gr is quick in the corners this thing feels so balanced though front grip is incredible i feel like i can drive it like a rear-wheel drive car he's got me in the streets i think but this has a very very good grip in the corners maybe not the gi errors level it's got 400 pounds on that car but it is staunch and stout i have one more cylinder more power 315 horsepower 280 pound-feet of torque because this is the manual the shifter feels great a little it's similar to the gr86 but more mechanical no ref hang either so i can blast through the gears and the shifts are short top of second gears looks like it's about 100 kilometers an hour just a bit under so on the road you can really enjoy this car and i know that the gearing in that golf r is longer this is a more fun animated vehicle the point is well i might be having a hard time catching james currently in the corners on the straights i should be able to do this in fact you know what he's going to chase me let's do this properly what's he thomas thomas thomas let's do let's do this properly all right i will meet you on the drag strip let's have a race fine okay this is lighter weight potentially a better all-wheel drive system this is my dig race is my best chance also thomas is an idiot okay it's not like i have to deal with carsten and his leagues of focus that is unfair that's unfair bully the gr corolla they don't even make those anymore but i guess all is fair in love and drag races because we're all part of the 300 horsepower plus club so fine fine this just got interesting okay so these are all all-wheel drive manual cars with heavily boosted engines um i've seen karsten launch that sti and he does it properly i'll have you know or you rev the piss out of it get some boost and then dump the clutch at like many rpm i'm gonna do the same with this james is gonna do the same with that this is really hard on clutches and drive trains don't do this at home or do it at home your call [Music] good launch [Music] come oh on oh that's close oh the golf is going ahead oh the golfer is quick i'm neck and neck with the sti i've just taken the sdi yes oh that was a great race oh my god that's fun wow these cars are matched you're looking at the manual all-wheel drive turbocharged powerhouse under 50 grand collection here and it is exciting what happened everything was great did he beat you no okay it was neck and neck within the within a tenth of a second of each other if not less and and you won though i just took it well i mean overall you lost i just want to reiterate that but the second is pretty good actually this is a corolla winning is winning in america it's cheaper forget about canada for a minute cheaper america does every day um this thing is a rocket off the line very quick right and i will have to say this now because if i don't every single golf bar owner in the universe will this comes with a dct or a dsg and if you had if i had the dsg i would have gapped you guys by another two car lengths true these two are manual only though so we've got to make it fair carson he did very well i thought the sti because even though it's it's an aging car it's an asian car it's a what car aging aging uh it's got more horsepower than the gr corolla not what i said but it's like 200 pounds heavier so for that weight difference i really i didn't think it would overcome the weight difference and it did pretty well these are all very evenly matched but this is just got it ever i was so impressed with everyone's launches nice job everyone it really we all just dang off the line man dumping clutches at almost 6 000 rpm is it's a real rush i'll say that i feel really bad for the dumb clutches and win races and i've only done one of them okay let's do a roll race yeah yeah okay the boost in this thing is nuts the gauge cluster doesn't even care about anything south of 4000 rpm in sport mode why should i 25.2 psi of boost come on roll race oh i was more in the booth there come on golf the golf is edgy [Music] i think i took that i think i just have the top end on these guys [Music] all right that's the quicker car yeah just yeah the sti and this are matched just match just straight up match it looked like it it looks like we're more in the boost when we go there because he and i both went off together yeah and then you saw and then i walked past you yeah just because of the gearing i guess i don't know um interesting okay all right uh lap times this thing's a rapid mate yes this is the corolla gr the corolla sti i have faith in the lap time let's see what happens okay lap times now before i start just a quick note we removed some of the cars from the leaderboard as we've realized that the lap times from the first year we tested here were a bit slow as no one had driven on the track in over six years okay the golf r first this is a surprisingly agile car and way better balance than the previous gen on vw's recommendation i'm running in nurburgring mode which keeps the suspension soft which is perfect to deal with the curbs and bumps here i found the golf r to be a very communicative little car the steering is great the front end is strong and it puts the power down very well however the stock tire really does feel like it's the limiting factor in cornering speeds we'll also say the gearing wasn't perfect for this track and i kept hitting the limiter right at the exit of corners and the seats weren't bolstered enough for me to lift my left foot to shift but you're watching the fastest lap in the r [Music] okay the gr it was immediately apparent that this car was a bit more glued to the tarmac in the corners overall grip levels felt higher and james was right this is a fantastic little car to drive steering is great brakes are very strong and there is good feedback from all the controls but unfortunately even in 70 rear mode you can't rotate this car on the throttle and it does understeer a bit more in that mode because it feels like as the all-wheel drive system tries to spin the rears faster instead of inducing oversteer it just forces the car forward into understeer so in 50 50 mode the front actually grips better and you can rotate the car through the corner either way you're watching the fastest lap in this car and honestly after i was done doing the laps i knew the times would be pretty close oh also we did have a brand new wrx there this day so i set a lap time in it just as a benchmark for a cheaper manual turbocharged all-wheel drive option okay oh i have set lap times yeah grueling i've been sitting here watching you yeah bouncing over the curb catching air i missed the sti though no i did the sdi actually do the sti um i just thought that that car had a it's an owner car so a few kilometers on it breaks it just i didn't feel like it was fair the time didn't quite make sense okay it wasn't representative all the other times made perfect sense based on the car and the conditions so we have three brand spanking new cars yes yeah you did the wrx though i did do the wrx yeah okay it's not it's not great on the track that that's not one it's not where it's starting now i got everything i could have i'm guessing i'm guessing 118. it over the 117.07 that's a good showing actually it's not bad it's not bad i got one lap in and then on the second lap blew the breaking zone because the brakes were done one lap out of it these are all day long with the brakes yeah i'm more curious about these so watching you from the sidelines yes you know i mean today we figured out this is pretty rapid it is a great little hatch doesn't want to oversteer it's very hot yeah no it doesn't dude it doesn't do the drifts which was a big bummer this does big fat drifts this first no matter what we did other than obviously hand brake but you can make a front-wheel drive car drift with a handbrake it just it didn't i don't know it didn't wasn't quite as playful but but it was good but then neither is the wrx and this is more playful than that and it does all the sti rally stuff okay well hold on we can't we can't know that this doesn't do rally stuff we can't know that we are assuming you make an arse of yourself that's not how the saying goes that's how it goes okay you ready oh i don't know 21 first golf golf okay the golf did a one fifteen point three one fifteen point three yep pretty good for a family hatch i i do wanna say that if you're comparing it to other times in the leaderboard it's colder today the track is a bit wet some gooses did some pooing on it but that's still a good three seconds quicker than the mark seven yes it is uh that was very long time ago long time ago yeah but listen i got everything i could out of this car and i think the tires probably held it back a bit now what would you like to know i told you i dried because that's a mixture of brake dust goose poo the whole thing okay are you ready yeah so this was a 115.3 i'm guessing 115 6. one fourteen point six six good god yep wow so it was quicker and i think that just comes down to as i said tires probably helped but just overall corner grip levels that's bloody impressive yeah it's great it was great it's a great little car and and i found that like the more i the more the conditions changed in the track the more the car's balance changed the tires are very sensitive and i noticed that in the gr86 as well remember i was talking about the the ps4s aren't quite as consistent as the ps4s but this is the ps4s the ps4 that's what i mean yeah you put the ps4s on this car monster it would be a weapon right that is incredibly impressive i i really if the beginning of the day the fact that it beat this i would put money on this okay so look apart let's forgive forgive the dirt for a minute it's a bulbous bulging monstrous corolla i've been i've been daily in this yeah no one notices it okay one guy pull over and go what's happened to that like because it's it's done the arnold schwarzenegger thing from from twins yeah it's fallen and bruised no it like oh my tastes like dirt it's changing tires um i've got gooseberry the fender flares get me the supra the supra slash sienna fender flares that they're sienna that's right no they do things for me they do i love fender flares and i love the hood bulge i think it's cool with the air with the fence yeah this is the circuit pack stuff okay and uh and then on the you know we've got the roof which is probably the coolest thing that you don't see unless you go real close yeah this is the woven no the non-woven non-woven the forged carbon fiber right it looks like a huracan it's so cool we have a baby spoiler but the i think the production version of the circuit kit gets a big fat spoiler that goes out oh interesting yeah we don't have that so okay take off an extra 10th of a second for downforce or add it oh i see what you would take off yeah the top speed would be lower i understand no i think it looks the bee's knees i i still love the look of the golf but i think this is such a fun entry uh it's expensive though in canada it's more expensive this is like 53 grand canadian a lot of money uh i mean it makes sense right it's price elasticity of demand of something or as we force economists like to say pedos um there isn't anything there's no idea what he's done there isn't anything that does what this does right now uh pretty much no this comes really close really close but the w this is you know basically sti vibing level drivetrain yeah the wrx does we said the wrx was in the class of one yeah but this is the next level above yep and the wrx is very cheap actually very you know but if i'm going to say one final statement about these two in terms of looks yeah the golf r has always been the sleeper everyone loves it that it's the sleeper yeah also known as boring i like that they took this car they took the regular corolla and just made it crazy there's vents there's flares there's wings i've got some deep dish pizzas going on here i think this is the way it should be done i've always thought the golf r should be more flashy so if it's going to be a hot hatch make it make it a make it the r make it now there's a gti of this there's no warm corolla no it's true you know the civic as well goes s-i type r yeah i think there's a market for a warm crew i don't know whether it'd be the all-wheel drive thing yeah but maybe just a lesser tune or i don't know what i want to say though is that we've won north america has one and i don't normally get to say that because i'm normally wearing a red coat but i get to celebrate it this time because a lot of people were upset that the yaris was strictly for not you know europe yes but i've driven the iris i've lived with the iris yeah even though this isn't quite as buttoned down it's a bit heavier yeah what it's just so much better it's a better car yeah adults can fit in the back yeah i think it looks better it's better for american roads should we check out the interior so you can because i've never been in the air and you could tell me even that's better yeah okay there you go okay i don't want to use this to poo on the yaris because the girls is excellent but i'm just i'm just trying to make north americans feel better about the fact that this is just realized something you said that there isn't a warm corolla there's the apex no no well the apex doesn't get any more power yeah but it's got like stuff in yeah fair enough anyway so yeah um yeah as i'm saying so actual adults can sit in the back here yep unless you get the murizo edition which is that special edition which has a wrist there's only like how many of them i think there's two hundred don't quote me but it does come with an alcater steering wheel the meriza oh it comes with a bunch of stuff yeah it's it's cup twos and it's 100 pounds lighter yeah yeah that was because the the damping calibration was so bad for our tracks maybe this is still the interesting uh but even though we haven't got the marisa edition the circuit edition gets murizo uh shift knob that's confusing we're missing an armrest but that's only because this is a prototype the production versions will have armrests okay uh but yeah it's a corolla in here and for 50 000 canadian you might balk at that if you're not into the whole wheel drive right well you know what you know what there's some stitching this is soft that's stitching that's soft no it's it's the top it's a top trim vibe to corolla yeah yeah it is still but we have a digital dash it's nice it is nice it's very nice the shifter is so significant you know this between this the iris was cheap the gr86 it doesn't have the heft to it i remember you saying you didn't like the shifter in the air so i can't imagine that the linkage is that much different between them but like this feels great to me i like this better yeah there's some piano black going on here which is not not the best but you know otherwise like there's really not much to be said in here it is still just a corolla heated seats he did steering wheel yep no heated rears no cord seats the golf r gets that yeah the golf wire is more luxurious and i would say that the golf r looks nicer however however i think that this is a more usable interior this is like we got a volume knob we got regular climate control like yeah but the infotainment you get a volume knob i'm just going to say it out loud again because that is so egregious it's not great it's horrible it's not great it's horrible but this this system is a bit slow it could do some improvement but really happy to have a digital gauge cluster um oh i forgot to say on the track in the golf r i kept because there's stupid haptic feedback buttons on the steering wheel yeah i kept hitting the r with my palm as i was turning and it kept taking me out of nurburgring mode so i had to sacrifice one of my laps i did an extra lap just to make up for it it was stupid i still did get obviously a good lap bit in a big room but like yeah like come on like just don't put them on the steering wheel the haptic feedback has to go it does it really is not okay i think this has been incredibly interesting i was very excited about this car are the seats you trying to seat the seats are good you know what i they don't hold me in very well they didn't in that either the civic type r is going to win has the seats down 100 the new talk about usable interior that civic interior is very good yeah i think both of these cars should be fearful of the type r oh what a line to end on but i'm not going to end on it okay no i am well we'll just have to visit the new type r when it comes won't we until then the gr corolla okay it might not share its gr siblings affinity for oversteer and playfulness or even the golf r's affinity for oversteer and playfulness but the gr corolla provides its own distinct flavor it's buttoned down and rugged in a way that the golf r isn't props to both cars by the way they took everything we threw at them today with zero issues and they were driven hard and long but the corolla proved quicker on the track and not for nothing you can have a speck of dirt on your finger and still use all of the controls so with its wide track and 300 horsepower the gr corolla is as quick as any other hot hatch in its price range the circuit edition we drove is nice but a core spec with the lsds and better brakes is probably all anyone will need as james said it doesn't match pure rear-wheel drive fun but the fact that it can tackle all climates fit full-size adults in the back and create this sound when hitting the rev limiter makes it a riotous all-rounder that we welcome to the hot hatch club with open arms the question is which one do you actually buy what would you do james ah damn it i was hoping to get away without answering that uh they are so close but i'm getting old and toronto roads are getting worse so for comfort practicality and ease i'd probably take the golf r with the dsg it's still brilliant at the other stuff what about you hmm since the golf r can drift i'm pretty sure the bible says thou shalt always choose oversteer and it's probably the better everyday choice but if i was planning on doing any competition like autocross rallycross or time attack i think i'd take the gr but i don't think either of them is the wrong choice interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Throttle House

Views: 1,762,112

Keywords: Toyota gr corolla review, gr corolla vs gr yaris, gr corolla exhaust, gr corolla engine, gr corolla drag race, gr corolla vs golf r, gr corolla vs sti, gr corolla vs wrx, gr corolla rally, gr yaris rally, gr yaris drag race, gr corolla vs civic type r, 2022 corolla, 2023 corolla review, toyota gr corolla morizo edition, gr corolla vs supra, gr corolla vs nissan z, gr corolla vs evo, gr corolla vs elantra n, gr yaris tune, gr corolla tune, gr corolla build

Id: lgAhcyG936U

Length: 29min 40sec (1780 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 14 2022