Text: Carlos Moura
Data: April 23, 2022
The secrets of the Toyota GR Corolla told by the chief development engineer of the Japanese brand Naoyuki Sakamoto. Too bad this sports car doesn’t come to Europe.
The Toyota GR Corolla is arousing great interest from fans of the Japanese brand and also a great curiosity about the technical details.
Speaking to our colleagues at Car & Driver, Toyota’s chief engineer, Naoyuki Sakamoto, revealed some secrets about the new sports car. He started by saying – and it’s not little – that he doesn’t have much in common with the rest of the range. This includes a giant grille that is “huge compared to the production Corolla” and an all-wheel drive system unique to this model.
Toyota GR Corolla has a reinforced chassis
Toyota’s chief engineer also said that “it was developed from competition, rally cars, and that it offers “a lot of throttle control in different conditions”. He added that the unladen weight (tare) of the Circuit Edition version is only 1451 kg.
More powerful than the GR Yaris
Toyota has managed to extract more power from the three-cylinder engine which is 303 hp in the GR Corolla against 270 hp in the GR Yaris. The structure was also modified to be able to handle the additional power.
“The chassis was reinforced with 349 more welding points and 2.7 meters more of sealants. The tread is different at the rear to accommodate the differential. We also changed the battery from front to back for better weight distribution,” says Naoyuki Sakamoto.
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The Circuit Edition version also gets a forged carbon fiber roof panel that was adopted not only to lower the cost but also for its visual impact. According to Naoyuki Sakamoto, development work started in 2018, that is, before GR Yaris. This coincided with the announcement of the GR Super Sport Concept which varied forms before it was put in the drawer last year.
