(upbeat ambient music)
- When you look at Toyota,
there's a lot happening over there.
And you can tell that they've got like money, money.
It's just like the kid that keeps showing up
with the newest camera at the car shows,
yet their first name, last name photography
only seems to have like 300 new followers
and you're kind of just concerned
because they only have three paid clients
and you know the three of 'em, it's the same three friends
so you're just kind of figuring out why in the hell
and how did they manage to do that.
You're curious, but where it's coming from,
but you are happy that he's or she is happy,
like, you know, potato, potato, whatever, that's Toyota
and the car community right now, because they're loaded
and you can tell it 'cause they're making sports cars.
So while the Walter White of the car industry right now
is producing absolute heaters,
there's one car that's hit the industry list
that has the community starstruck.
I'm Alex and today we're gonna be talking
about the absolutely next Tic-Tac-Terror
to come from Toyota,
we're talking about you wanting to own
a 2023 Toyota GR Corolla.
Also don't forget to subscribe
and if you're looking for aftermarket wheels, tires,
and suspension, be sure to hit us up over at
fitmentindustries.com.
There may not be a GR Corolla yet in the gallery,
but that doesn't mean
that there aren't some badass Corollas in there.
So if you need some inspiration,
be sure to check out the gallery
as well as you can figure out what looks best
on the GR Corolla that you're probably never gonna own,
but you will pick up a normal Corolla
because that's actually available.
And then you can get your wheels, tires
and suspension from Fitment Industries.
Max has a Corolla, I think.
It looks pretty good's.
Not GR.
The Toyota Corolla GR is a being on steroids.
It's built with the heritage
and Motorsport of Gazoo Racing,
a division within Toyota Motor Corporation
that was founded in 2007.
Toyota GR sounds fancy, big, expensive
and seems to have a huge organization
but when it was found, it really wasn't.
In fact, in 2007, it just consisted of student test drivers
and mechanics that was led by Hiromu Naruse.
Hopefully I got that right?
Who's the test driver of Toyota.
They managed to compete in the 24 hour Nurburgring race
with Akio Toyoda, with a D
as well as who's the VP of Toyota at the time.
Now because it was fresh and not officially backed
with all the red tape consumerism Toyota name,
they couldn't really call it Works Toyota Racing,
which the works is what typically
differentiates a corporation backing a racing team
for Motorsport competition.
And because they didn't have that,
they instead used the word Gazoo
and began its like with driver nicknames,
like literally every single person in the name
had a different nickname, and they had tiny budgets.
They had Altezza's and E90 race cars
they were within an old website
that looked like it was from WordPress from 2009.
Over time, Gazoo Racing gained popularity
both in the public eye,
but more importantly in the eyes of Toyota,
the organization began to see the value
of having Gazoo Racing involved in racing
and using the result primarily at the Nurburgring
to help with new car development
and then bragging about it to people like you
and people like me.
Once Toyoda with a D
took the office as president of Toyota in 2009,
that's with the T, Gazoo Racing expanded even more so
and began getting into more professional racing development.
By 2015 Gazoo Racing had Toyota Racing, Lexus Racing
and Gazoo Racing all underneath one.
And from there,
the conglomerate began to produce cars
that struck the news in shock
while giving the necessary feedback
to keep Toyota's sports models lineup of cars still sporty
because Toyota has kind of been going through a weird thing
where it was getting way too mainstream,
Gazoo racing helped make them fun and hip.
So when GR got their first hands
on the trim with the Toyota also known as a GR Supra,
it was no surprised that we'd see more GR series cars
from Toyota in the following years.
You know the noise that the GR Yaris made in 2020,
a manual build process that created the first Yaris
that would pretty much make anyone
happy to go to Toyotathon.
In 2021, we finally see the news of the GR Corolla,
but unlike the Yaris,
the Corolla will be sold in the United States.
And that's good
because there are only 32 people
that really wanna buy a new hot hatch in the US
when they're looking at comparison to an SUV.
And here we are,
in a world where 240SX's are $25,000
and 993 Porsches now cost more than classic Lamborghini's.
The world has become a place
that's a little bit odd for cars,
probably the oddest decision
was to introduce a GR Corolla to the us market,
even though it it's exciting, it's not that popular,
and fun fact for those garage knights,
the GR Corolla was actually delayed by a year
because Toyoda with a D,
the CEO wasn't satisfied with the prototype that he drove.
Now that's pretty badass when the CEO,
an accomplished racing driver
happened to be directly involved in this release.
So the GR Corolla ended up featuring
a small 1.6 liter turbocharge straight three cylinder,
1.6 liter 300 horsepower high 200 foot pounds of torque
on a tiny little wheel base came with a six speed
manual transmission and GR-Four
and all wheel drive system that was developed for the Yaris
with a standard distribution of 60/40 for power
that can be changed at 30 /70
if you like to party like Ryan Tuerck at Formula Drift.
His car's probably in a stock.
Now, let me tell you, the world absolutely flipped,
a tiny little three cylinder all wheel drive, six speed,
300 horsepower tic-tac not talking about TikTok.
I'm talking about tic-tac and it looks fun as hell.
You can absolutely just, they look so cool.
You can buy a base model or a circuit edition
and you get a one year membership
to the National Auto Sport Association
with an HPBE event included.
The car, let me repeat
will be one of the highest demanded vehicles
in the United States this year and next,
but that's inherently the problem.
The problem isn't that it's a new car
and likely to exceed any budget
people like you and people like me have,
it's not the problem
that it's not likely going to have issues
because it just will,
the problem isn't
that there's just so much cool shit on the car,
the problem is that this Goddamn car will be unavailable
and it'll be like getting a party hat at a party room
and it'll be like the Elden Ring bosses
that you'll never die from because you're just that good.
I'm still stuck on Rennala, it's like the second boss
it'll be like getting a USB plugin
right the way like the first time,
it'll be just impossible to actually get your hands on them
unless you happen to be somebody that's connected to Toyota.
So you want a GR Corolla, we'll sit down your credit card
and pick up your gambling addiction
because that's what this is gonna feel like
if you do wanna jump into one of these brand new cars.
The GR Corolla, which is what Batman would drive his weekly
it's not a phase meeting is a heater and Toyota knows this.
The production numbers that have again been thrown out
is right around 6,500 units over the first 12 months.
Now MotorTrend stated that only 1500 of the 65
will be circuit models.
And that was done by purpose by Mike Trip,
the VP of marketing, following the new fad of the one two
few marketing model for everything that they make.
What makes it worse for people like us
in the upper Midwest is that to allocation process
for cars are by regions, not by dealers.
So even if you have a Toyotathon happy city,
if your region isn't doing super popular
in terms of Toyota sales, the odds of your region
getting the allocations they need with the GR Corolla
and having a wide diverse range
of different trims is very low.
So while people are trying to downplay
the anticipated demand,
I have a feeling it's gonna be a pretty big demand
because everything is driving a demand right now.
I don't know why, I don't know where, I don't know how
but people just wanna own and buy everything.
Reminds me a little bit of 2007, but it's gonna be fine.
And that is a problem,
but if you do manage to get ahold of
GR Corolla in the future,
you you're gonna want to just give it to me.
But second off, congratulations,
the ability to modify these things will undoubtedly
be be huge for the community.
And while the setups in the circuit edition are badass,
there's no doubt there's room to grow in performance.
You can already see it with Ryan Tuerck's drift car
and that should already be a testament to the car's prowess
and albeit modified, Toyota has done an excellent job
with their recent releases of performance vehicles
as long as you're willing to swallow the price tag
and the dealer mark.
The question really comes down to the mark-up,
comes down to if you can get it
and then of course, how is it actually gonna feel
once you get around and drive it?
But what do you think about the GR Corolla?
Is it worth it or is it pretty much hype only
because people don't know what to do
with their money these days
and there's nothing else available besides 2006 Chevy 1500.
Let us know below.
And of course, if you're looking for aftermarket wheels,
tires, or suspension be sure to hit us up
over a fitmentindustries.com.
I'm Alice from Fitment Industries,
and we will see you later.
Peace.