Toyota TRD Corolla
May 24, 2007 by Alborz Fallah
With the New Corolla out and about, it was time to add some racing credibility to the new range. The TRD Corolla isn’t your everyday Corolla, with its 2.0-liter, 190kW naturally-aspirated four-cylinder engine (redlines at 8,500 rpm), the rally car only weighs 1200kg – this is one serious racing machine.
The three-time Australian Rally Champion Neal Bates will be the pilot as the Corolla makes its debut at the Rally of Canberra, on 1-3 June.
“The car performed really well. You are always very nervous when you run a brand new car for the very first time. We ended up doing nearly as big a distance as an ARC rally and the car was bulletproof for the entire time.” Bates said.
TRD is optimistic while remaining cautious about the chances of the new car in its first event. The aim for now is to simply finish the rally in one piece!
The big question now is if TRD will introduce a performance variant for the new Corolla. There has been some talk of this for some time, and with the AWD Toyota Blade running around happily in Japan, the technological challenges have already been conquered.
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