AutoTrader Find of the Week: Toyota GR Corolla is Finally a Fair Buy

I was harsh on the Toyota GR Corolla when it launched.

Not because it wasn’t dripping wet buckets of stupid fun to drive. With its spirited turbocharged 300-horsepower engine, beautifully light and snappy manual transmission, aggressive all-wheel-drive system, and wickedly brilliant chassis tuning, the GR Corolla is genuinely more fun to drive than any 700-horsepower muscle car or over-engineered supercar you can name.

In fact, the only car currently on the market that really gives it a run for its money in terms of sheer-fun-to-driveness is the Toyota GR86. Different formula, same great taste.

Importantly, I’d say the GR Corolla is more fun to drive than its closest competitors, the Honda Civic Type R and Volkswagen Golf R. Not that those are bad cars by any stretch. But where the Type R acts as a performance enhancing drug with limits that are always just a wee tiny little bit above your abilities, the GR Corolla is very much just you and the machine. Because the GR Corolla’s limit feels right on the edge of your comfort level, you feel in concert with the car at all times.

So why did I claim after driving the GR Corolla in 2023 that you’d have to be an idiot not to get the Type R instead?

It was partially because, despite the GR Corolla’s raw driving enthusiasm and charm, the Type R was simply the better overall product. It gave you 95 per cent of the thrills of the GR Corolla with none of its rough edges. 

It’s no wonder when you learn that the Type R was developed alongside the entire Civic lineup. It’s a product that’s envisioned as a starting point, not a destination, and it shows. Everything is buttoned up, tight, and premium by Honda standards. 

The GR Corolla, by comparison, feels like driving somebody’s project car because it basically is. Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda’s team Frankensteined the GR Corolla together with spare parts. On the plus side, you get turbo whistle and a level of wild revelry that is genuinely baffling as to how it was approved by a publicly traded company. But on the downside, you also get wicked noise, vibration and harshness, and more or less the same cheap plastic interior as every rental Corolla, save for some bucket seats and a GR-branded steering wheel (again, very project car).

This difference was glaring back in 2023, because both cars were seeing absolutely obnoxious, obscene levels of markup. And if you were so compelled as to drop over $80,000 (people did) on what was supposed to be a sensible, fun hot hatch, the Civic was the one that came much closer to meeting the quality standard that price would suggest.

Am I saying the Type R feels like an $80,000 car? No. But am I saying the GR Corolla feels like an $80,000 car? Absolutely not.

Mercifully, the market has cooled off, so you can now have a brand new GR Corolla starting around $50,000. And there are plenty of gently used examples for under $45,000. 

This 2023 example in Greenfield Park, Que., on AutoTrader has done less than 13,000 km and has an asking price of under $43,000.

Still thinking of going for the Type R instead? I don’t blame you, but I would reverse my previous recommendation and personally go for the GR Corolla.

Because if you want a Type R with the sort of low mileage these GR Corollas have, you will be paying at least $5,000 to $10,000 more for a previous-generation car. Start looking at current-generation examples of the Type R, and you’re up into the $60,000 to $70,000 range. And there are simply too many other cars I would rather own for $70,000. 

So, the GR Corolla is finally the absolute performance car bargain it was intended to be in the first place. 

Granted, $50,000 is still a lot of money. But according to AutoTrader’s last published price index in 2024, it's about $16,400 cheaper than the average new car sold in Canada — so, you know, “bargain” is always relative.

If you previously felt priced out of the GR Corolla, there might never be a better time to get your hands on one. Sure, prices may continue to dip as time moves on, but people are going to drive the wheels off these things. They’re way too fun not to. So this might be your last opportunity to get one of these in relatively clean condition.

And as far as buying a project car goes, trust me when I say you’d much rather own one of Akio Toyoda’s than the kid down the street.