The Toyota GR Corolla is the car that Toyota wants you to think about when you think about Toyota.
There’s a special class of car that fulfills the wishes of your classic ‘man’s man’. It has to be fast and involving, respected by the car community, and yet comfortable and practical enough to do some family duties in dignity. I’m talking of course about the hot hatch – specifically the 5-door hot hatch. Traditionally, this segment has been dominated by European brands with models like the Golf GTI standing in as the poster child for the entire genre. However, the Japanese and Koreans aren’t playing second fiddle here. Hyundai has some very impressive options that they just don’t sell here and Honda have held the performance crown for front-wheel drive hot hatchbacks for at least 2 generations now. It’s only natural that Toyota stepped in to also stake its claim. Enter the GR Corolla.
The GR Corolla is hardly a new product. It has been around since 2022 and it has been available in Malaysia since 2023. We even put the original 6-speed manual equipped version of it up against the Civic in 2024. Now in 2026, we find ourselves in a newly updated automatic model and it’s actually the version of the GR Corolla I prefer. Yes, that may sound surprising given both the cars I personally own have manual transmissions, but it’s true. The GR Corolla is a more complete product with the automatic gearbox. Here’s why.
The one takeaway from my time with the original model with 3 pedals was that it just didn’t know when to relax. The engine roared to life and then made its presence known, felt, and heard until you turned the thing off and got out. The chassis communicated every bump in the road and demanded you take the drive seriously 100% of the time. All of this was fine and expected in a performance hatch, but what was really tiring after a weekend was that clutch pedal. I’m used to driving a manual but the clutch feel in the GR Corolla was just unforgiving. EVERYDAY was leg day in that car, and in KL traffic, the enjoyment was lost on me after the 2nd day. Plus, I had the Civic Type R to play with at the same time and I found that clutch to be a lot more forgiving. These are road cars with seating for at least 4 adults anyway. A little comfort goes a long way. While I would have been happy with a slightly lighter clutch, I can understand that leaving the manual version for the hardcore crowd and introducing an automatic just made a lot more sense.
And it’s not just any automatic that they slapped in here. This is a specially developed Gazoo Racing ‘Direct Automatic’ Transmission, which has been tuned for track use. While we don’t think many GR Corolla customers in Malaysia are going to take this thing to the track regularly, it’s great to see that Toyota have got the right idea here – overbuilding the gearbox so that it can take some serious sustained punishment. To that end, they’ve also fitted a heat-resistant clutch and a transmission fluid cooler.
Without a doubt this is one of the quickest shifting and most responsive conventional automatic gearboxes that I’ve ever experienced from a Japanese brand. It’s not quite as lightning quick as a dual-clutch design, but it has a more natural low-speed behaviour and shift feel to compensate. It’s also quite good at pre-empting downshifts and upshifts. I found myself barely engaging the paddle shifters at all and it was only on the final day of the test drive when I realised they got the ‘tiptronic’ style shift right. By that I mean pushing the lever forward shifted the gearbox down and pulling the lever backward shifted it up. In many conventional vehicles with a tiptronic-style override, it’s done in the opposite way for normies.
When you do push the GR Corolla hard, the 1.6L 3-cylinder turbo releases its 300PS and 400Nm of torque in a massive burst. It’s not quite enough to burn rubber (the GR-Four AWD system takes care of that), but it’s more than enough to wake you up with its 0-100km/h time of 5.3 seconds. It’s not quite supercar quick, and to be honest, many electric vehicles costing less move much faster than this, but the GR Corolla has a unique character of its own. Like I noted when I drove the manual version, it’s a very involving car – you need to pay attention when you extract performance from it. You need to EARN the thrills WITH the machine. Not even the Civic Type R gets this right (even though the Type R is a superior vehicle all around). I’m surprised that they managed to preserve most of this character in the automatic version of the GR Corolla. It’s a testament to the team behind the engineering of this vehicle.
I believe that this gearbox also makes this a better car simply because it’s just more suited to its task of a family-friendly hot hatch. After all, there are impractical 2-seaters you could buy instead if all you wanted was a pure performance or lifestyle-oriented weekend car. The appeal of the GR Corolla is that it has near supercar levels of power but also enough space for a small family. You may still need a larger car in your household for some aspects of life, but the daily weekday run can be done in one of these.
There was a ‘behind-the-scenes’ update to the GR Corolla chassis overall. Toyota increased the use of structural adhesives by more than double to make the vehicle’s structure more rigid and they’ve tweaked the suspension for better stability. The ABS was retuned and there’s also a new cold air intake. Even the GR-Four AWD system now has a revised front-to-rear torque split than before. Honestly I can’t tell if any of the changes have affected the driving character of the car as it has been some time since I drove the previous model and I generally don’t drive that hard. If anything, it feels less twitchy and more predictable at high speed but it probably matters more at the extremes, which you shouldn’t try to find on public roads.
Aesthetically, the GR Corolla looks a lot better in 2026 with the redesigned front bumper. The lower air intake section has been enlarged and it looks a lot more modern and ‘muscular’ for lack of a better word. It also looks so much better in this ‘Precious Metal’ colour compared to the Super White II option of our previous test car.
The GR Corolla mostly gives off a slightly mature vibe until you notice the triple exhaust outlets and realise that’s where they went a little extra. If your eyes move upward, you might notice the roof isn’t painted black, but is actually finished in carbon fibre. That could not have been cheap to produce.
Honestly, I really do like the look of the GR Corolla, and in hindsight I feel like it actually gives off a more upmarket aesthetic than the Type R does, at least from the outside.
Inside though, I’m sorry to say that Toyota still don’t quite hit the mark. The positive changes versus the previous iteration first: the screen is a little larger and supports wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It also has a USB-C port. Unfortunately it’s still bezels galore and the overall look and placement of the unit makes the interior look like it was designed in the 2010s.
After spending time with even a handful of modern Chinese vehicles, you’ll understand just how far away this cabin feels from modern in comparison. On the plus side, this would have been an A grade interior just a few years ago – digital animations are smooth, blacks produced by the display are inky and some material choices are decent by Toyota standards.
Unfortunately, it’s still very much a Toyota parts bin in here and our chief complaint about the interior feeling a little too spartan for an RM300,000 car remains. And if you think this isn’t something that can be overcome, just take a quick look at the Civic Type R. There you get red alcantara everywhere, red carpets, a serialized plaque, an aluminium shift knob and switchgear that already felt one rung more tactile even on the non Type R version. There’s a way to create a sense of occasion out of something simple and Toyota just about missed the mark. You also have the Volkswagen Golf R with its blue accents, ambient lighting, heads up display, and carbon trim creating a real ambience for even less money than Toyota is asking for. The best I can say about the GR Corolla is that it doesn’t do anything wrong. There’s nothing tacky or out of place in here. In fact, the metal pedals, red stitching, and Ultrasuede semi-bucket seats are all a purist will ever really ask for in a performance hatch.
So, finally, is the GR Corolla with the automatic the best way to sneak serious performance into a practical 5-door? I feel like the answer might be yes. Say what you like about a 3-cylinder in this category, there’s some real character to this engine and it comes with rally-winning pedigree. The GR-Four system has a pretty interesting torque splitting functions, but you don’t need to go in and fiddle with it. Even if you just set it to normal mode and drive it hard when the opportunities present themselves, the GR Corolla is every bit as involving with the automatic transmission as it is with the manual. Plus now you can actually relax whenever traffic gets a little heavy instead of working out.
We mentioned a couple of rivals just now and those do present good alternatives. Both are substantially larger in terms of boot space. Rear legroom also feels a little cramp in comparison. However, the GR Corolla has the more engaging and involving drive feel where the others feel a little bit like a simulation. You really need to get behind the wheel of one to get it and maybe it is time for that test drive. For RM379K though, you have loads of options out there even beyond the vehicles in this particular class. You could conceivably get a slightly less fun car and an EV with the same budget. However, I don’t think any 1 car package gets close to this blend of raw power with a touch of practically besides the ones in this category.
2026 Toyota GR Corolla Automatic Specifications
Engine: 12-valve 3-cylinder turbocharged petrol
Capacity: 1618cc
Gearbox: 8-speed conventional automatic + GR Four AWD
Max Power: 300PS
Max Torque: 400Nm @ 3,000rpm
Acceleration (0-100km/h): 5.3 seconds
Top Speed: 230km/h
Price: RM378,950
