Photo: Toyota
The new Toyota GR Corolla is sick as hell, and just like every other enthusiast out there, I can’t wait to get my hands on one. There’s only one problem – and it’s not the car’s fault: greedy dealers.
We have seen what happened to other vehicles of this type. The Ford Focus RS, Honda Civic Type-R and VW Golf R all suffered from massive markups – and two of them still do. These cars were put in a completely different and mostly unattainable price range for most enthusiasts.
So – to that I say – if Toyota really cares about the enthusiast community – they need to nip the dealer markup problem in the bud before it can ruin the GR Corolla.
Apparently, the price has not yet been officially announced. The smart money says the car will snap around the $37-40k mark like many of its competitors I mentioned above. There’s also the Circuit edition, which will only be available in launch year and comes with all sorts of goodies. This one will cost more – probably closer to $50,000, and that’s okay for a car that’s destined to be a collector’s item.
The real problem is that unless Toyota does something, you won’t be seeing any decent deals on these cars any time soon – or, frankly, ever. At a time when Honda CR-Vs are going beyond the sticker, there’s little hope that the GR Corolla’s price won’t be out of reach for most car enthusiasts who also don’t own an Island.
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This whole argument doesn’t even take into account the fact that fins are going to be widespread. We’re going to see GR Corollas on Bring A Trailer for really astronomical prices, and I don’t know how much we (or Toyota) can do about it. Unless they’re running some sort of Ford GT-esq model where the car is difficult to turn around for the first few years I don’t think there’s too much hope and that’s a real shame.
The GR Corolla was not meant to be a vehicle only owned by the wealthy. Essentially, it’s a hot hatch – the kind of car destined to democratize high-performance vehicles for everyone. We can only hope that Toyota recognizes this fact and takes care of the problem before it can even begin.