[spike021]

Originally Posted by Galerion

So it looks like currently all kinds of journalists are driving the cars and next week Tuesday there are allowed to publish their reviews and impressions.

This fellow has already posted something though. It's not a full-fledged review but his thoughts and impressions. Obviously he is not allowed to say that he is talking about the GR but he makes it obvious that he does


"Remember those stories that used to fly around the benches of the sixth form common room in whispered tones, told simply for the sake of the telling? Gossip and tittle-tattle usually, but occasionally something that seemed momentous at the time – and always told in that “I can’t tell you who I’m talking about or how I know this, but I’ve simply got to tell somebody type of way. Well, I’m dying to tell you one about a car.

It’s just provided what might have been the most amazing drive I’ve had in anything all year. But this isn’t a review. I’ve absolutely no intention of revealing exactly which car I’m talking about, I’m afraid. I’m very much hoping, in fact, that when I’m finished here, the closest you’ll be able to come to knowing exactly what I’ve been frothing on about is via an educated, balance-of-probability guess. Not that I’m really even inviting guesses, either. If you email me a correct one, I’m bound not to tell you that you’re right anyway. Sorry.

But wow, what a car. It’s one of a breed that feels rather like it’s been in hibernation for a decade or so and that I wasn’t sure would ever really return at all. And yet, here it is. It is also a supremely, deliciously unlikely sort of fast car – because of what it is, what it’s like to drive and who has made it.

It’s really fast and incredibly eye-opening to drive but also temptingly affordable. It’s the kind of car that seems purpose-built for racking up improbable point-to-point average speeds that exceed what you imagined might be its true potential by at least double. To be bluntly honest, it’s the kind of car we used to call a ‘licence-loser’, back when it was a little bit more acceptable to joke about these things. But you could park it in broad daylight next to entirely ordinary cars and the vast majority of people wouldn’t look at it twice. “Oh, it’s only an ‘x’,” people will say. If only they knew.

I’ve just spent a couple of days driving this car on UK A- and B-roads that it suited joyously well. We’ve reached the point now when even some of our new and allegedly compact performance cars can feel, at times, like they’ve become uncomfortably large between the hedges and the white lines. We know this – we write about it frequently – and no amount of handling precision or body control can really make up for it.

Well, praise be, this new car really isn’t like that. And as well as being one of the best-sized enthusiast cars I’ve driven in recent times, it’s scandalously sure-footed and has dynamic tuning that seems quite brilliantly judged for devouring cross-country miles at pace. It isn’t over-sprung or over-responsive; it doesn’t feel like a track-day fugitive, because there’s a good dose of pragmatism and progressiveness about its body control; and it has handling manners that allow it to just keep getting better the faster you go.

I can quite appreciate that the car I’m describing may not sound very ‘now’. It was always a risk to make performance cars like this, so plainly and absolutely dedicated to the thrill of speed sampled out in the wild on the public road. There really aren’t many places left where cars like that can be enjoyed at anything like their full potential. Twenty-five years ago, when the likes of the Subaru Impreza and Mitsubishi Lancer Evo were doing their thing and the Lancia Delta Integrale, Audi Quattro and Ford Escort Cosworth hadn’t long finished doing something similar, nobody had even thought that mandatory electronic speed limiters might one day be a thing. These days, the climate in which fast cars exist has changed so much.

And yet there is still a time and a place for lightning to strike, it would seem. The improbably quick, alluringly inexpensive, slightly geeky and cultish, A-to-B-in-a-heartbeat-and-in-any-weather performance car is back – and I can’t wait to tell you more about it.

Matt Saunders
Road test editor

Damnit, I want one. I'll keep repeating myself: I hate Toyota US and I am nearly sure the new "GR Corolla" will be nothing like this.