Toyota GR Corolla automatic likely

The 2024 Toyota GR Corolla looks set to join its smaller GR Yaris sibling in offering the option of an automatic transmission.

While he stopped short of confirming its impending arrival, Toyota Gazoo Racing president Tomoya Takahashi suggested to Australian media that a self-shifting GR Corolla would become available “if there was customer demand”.

Toyota Australia vice-president of sales, marketing and franchise operations, Sean Hanley, further hinted that with automatic variants now accounting for more than half of Toyota Supra and GR86 sales, “data would indicate that people would gravitate towards the auto if [GR Corolla] was available”.

Like the GR Corolla, the GR Yaris has up until now only been available as a six-speed manual, but the facelifted version, scheduled to arrive in Australia in late 2024 or early 2025, will adopt an eight-speed torque converter auto.

This should substantially increase the buying pool for both cars and boost GR Corolla sales beyond the 813 at the time of writing, including 788 GTS versions and 25 of the hard-core Morizo two-seater.

Automatics are by far the preferred gearbox in the hot hatch segment, with the Volkswagen Golf GTI and R twins now only offered in auto form and the Hyundai i30 N – which like the Toyotas was initially only available as a manual – finding more buyers in dual-clutch auto guise.

The facelifted GR Yaris also scores a power boost from 200kW/370Nm to 224kW/400Nm, but it’s unclear whether Toyota’s remarkable 1.6-litre turbo-petrol three-cylinder has the headroom to give the GR Corolla, which already produces 221kW/400Nm in the case of the Morizo, a similar bump.

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