Toyota Corolla hot hatch goes cold

What's happened to the Toyota Corolla GR hot hatch?

As the Toyota Yaris GR with its rally-inspired wide body kit and all-wheel drive powertrain is set to make its debut at the bush-fire affected final round of the World Rally Championship (WRC) in Coffs Harbour on November 17, the Toyota Corolla GR appears to be on the backburner.

Despite the likes of Toyota Motor Corporation's deputy chief designer, Toshio Kanei, previously stating that a turbocharged 1.6-litre petrol-powered Corolla hot hatch was being seriously considered – and Toyota Australia hinting at its prospects – it now appears the Yaris will go it alone as Toyota’s GR hot hatch hero model.

According to Toyota Australia's VP of sales and marking Sean Hanley, talk of a highly-anticipated rival for the Volkswagen Golf GTI and Hyundai i30 N from Toyota has been premature.

"No plans at this stage for that car, the GR Corolla," Hanley told carsales.com.au.

Despite the Corolla being the world's best-selling car and competing in a bigger market segment with more buyers, it appears as though Toyota's high-performance division, GR (Gazoo Racing), is focussed only on the Supra and Yaris at this stage.

"I'm on record as saying that Australia and Australian consumers are very open to performance cars. So I do see a big opportunity for GR in Australia, but it has to be at the appropriate time and it has to be the appropriate product," said Hanley.

"So we would never rule it out, but we don’t have any announcements to make on Corolla GR," said the Toyota boss.

A GR-branded Corolla should not be confused with the hybrid Corolla warm hatch that is currently sold in Europe. It ups power from the current Corolla hybrid's 90kW to 132kW, thanks to a bigger battery and a larger 2.0-litre engine, and Hanley says it’s on the radar for Australia.

"In the future we may be able to look at the European engine," he said.

A turbo-petrol Corolla GR would certainly generate a lot of hype for Toyota, but as Tetsuya Tada -- the man who plays a pivotal role in GR product planning -- previously told carsales.com.au, the global rollout of high-output performance models is easier said than done.

"We have lots of requests from different countries, so it’s really, really challenging to decide on the order [of performance models]," explained Tada-san, who was also the chief engineer on Toyota Supra and 86.

So the likes of the Volkswagen Golf GTI, Hyundai i30 N, Ford Focus ST and Renault Megane RS can rest easy in the knowledge a muscled-up Corolla is still a long way off.

But this week’s reveal of the Toyota Yaris GR-4 Prototype will provide new insights into just how serious Toyota’s GR high-performance sub-brand is about creating halo cars.

And the production version of the pumped-up pint-size hot hatch will also reveal the potential of the Japanese car-maker's latest scalable TNGA platform architecture, which underpins everything from the new Yaris and Corolla to the Prius and RAV4.

Hanley refused to be drawn on when the Toyota Yaris GR will be go sale in Australia.

"We've just launched our Supra under the GR nameplate -- that's our first entry,” he said.

"And I know that is a unique, niche performance car with a lot of heritage, however, it does suggest to us that our market is certainly open to the types of products that GR may bring out in the future," he stated.

Given Australians’ love affair with hot hatches – and the fact the GR-4 prototype is making its global premiere Down Under, to commemorate the brand's return to form in the WRC – it’s a matter of when the Yaris GR hits local showrooms, not if.

The second-generation Toyota 86 due in 2021 is almost certain to wear GR badging and a GR-branded version of the Toyota C-HR compact SUV is already available.

However the latter doesn't feature any significant mechanical or performance upgrades, which Toyota says is a prerequisite for any GR model here.

"It's Japan-only at the moment, so it probably wouldn’t be for Australia," said Hanley of the hotted-up C-HR.

Toyota's global boss and self-confessed petrol-head, Akio Toyoda, continues to push for more models from his company's burgeoning go-fast GR sub-brand, but it remains to be seen if a Toyota Corolla hot hatch is a priority.