I Wanted to Love the GR Corolla, But the Civic Type R Stole My Heart

Call it the victim of high expectations. It sits in front of me, idling a grumpy note, its flared fenders like a promissory note for shenanigans. It’s the motorsports-inspired, variable torque-split, raucous, Toyota-built rally car of my dreams. It’s the 2023 GR Corolla, and it’s my second favorite car here.

Behind it is something simpler. The 2023 Honda Civic Type R sends power only to the front wheels, with no trick all-wheel-drive system. The homologation-special three-pot with its Eighties-style boosty powerband is nowhere to be found. The Civic gets its grunt from a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder, the engine layout you’ll find powering every boring, utilitarian crossover. The bodywork is less bulky, the interior less spartan, and the bumper less cartoonish. It is a Honda Civic, with a big wing, and plenty of power. It is not a new idea.

It is, however, a great one. Age does not dilute the brilliance. We may be familiar with the concept of making a fast, engaging version of the best compact sedan lineage the world has ever seen, but it doesn’t make it any less spectacular.

Yet, like the rest of us, I bias toward the novel. I had whetted my appetite in the Austrian Alps driving the forbidden-fruit GR Yaris, and now there was a bigger, more practical version heading to our shores. Manual only, all-wheel-drive, with a motor from the devil’s lawnmower and a face that was looking for a fight. As a lifelong fan of Toyota reliability, constantly disappointed by the company’s refusal to make enthusiast products, I let myself believe that my perfect car had arrived.

I was right, just not about the badge.

The Toyota, for its part, charmed me from minute one. A matte gray Morizo Edition arrived for Performance Car of the Year back in September, and I was captivated immediately. The style, the clarity of purpose, the theater, it was all unexpected for a Toyota hatchback. This is a company that will continue making a naturally aspirated 3.5-liter V-6 until the sun burns out, and it built the most powerful three-cylinder turbo production engine ever. Then it made an all-wheel-drive system to shame a Subaru, threw in a manual as the sole transmission option, and packaged it all in the unassuming body of a Corolla. It was a Toyota fan’s wildest dream.

Wild being the key word. Rolling onto the track at Monticello Motor Club during PCOTY, the GR Corolla pulled with the eager intensity of the Yaris I had fallen for back in 2021. It delivers its power like a punch, a force you see building until it whacks you in the gut. There’s no twin-scroll trickery, no half-assed simulation of a naturally aspirated mill. The GR Corolla is a big turbo, screw-around car, and it drives like one. If you don’t know how to keep it on boil, then you’re not going to go fast. Like all great cars, it makes you work for it.

Hitting curbs on a quick hill convinced me further. The GR Corolla Morizo Edition had that perfect rally car charm. It doesn’t accept beatings; it demands them. Driving this car isn’t a game of finesse so much as a fistfight on ice, delicate and brutal all at once. The shifter doesn’t feel polished, it feels hefty and rough, the kind of thing you find yourself slamming between gears.

The whole experience was fun in a ferocious way, something I didn't see coming from today's Toyota. It felt far faster than its 300 hp and 295 lb-ft of torque suggested, far more special than its drab interior and mass-market badge implied. For all the obviousness of a great Civic, I never expected a Corolla to get this good.

There is, however, a reason that a great Civic feels more obvious. Toyota’s newfound affection for enthusiasts is appreciated, but Honda has always worked a little harder at making its meat-and-potatoes products good to drive. The benefit isn’t just that the Civic Type R engineers have more experience focusing on driving dynamics. It’s that they started with a better platform.

Somehow, though, I wasn’t too excited about the Civic. There’s no surprise factor here, no trump card over the segment standards. The 2023 model arrived with 315 hp and 306 lb-ft of torque going to the front wheels through a six-speed manual transmission. No part of that is transformative. Every part of it is exceptional.