BRAND NEW TOYOTA COROLLA BREAKS OUT!

2014 Toyota Corolla USA specification

2014 Toyota Corolla USA specification

2014 Toyota Corolla USA specification

2014 Toyota Corolla USA specification

2014 Toyota Corolla USA specification

2014 Toyota Corolla Europe specification

2014 Toyota Corolla Europe specification

2014 Toyota Corolla Europe specification

2014 Toyota Corolla Europe specification

Toyota has finally released some details and plenty of images of the all-new Corolla sedan. Redesigned completely from scratch, the new Corolla is based on the Furia Concept but has been significantly watered down. The Corolla name has been around for 47 years now, selling over 39 million units so far.

New Corolla has grown slightly, as cars seem to do with every successive generation, to 4.639 metres in length, 1.776m in width, 1.45m in height and the wheelbase is up to 2.7m. This makes it just slightly smaller than the last Camry (Camry Australia) we received in Mzansi back in 2004. It weighs in at under 1 400kg in total, which is quite grand.

CEO Akio Toyoda is a modern Japanese leader who got his MBA in the USA. He’s also very much a racing enthusiast who believes one of the ways that Toyota, his granddaddy’s company, can be exciting again, is through design and sportiness. You see this in the new Lexus products, as well as, to a lesser extent, Toyota brand.

So with the new Corolla some boundaries were crossed. You can see it’s sporting the company’s new-look front grille with some piano black finish, LED headlamps and a very shapely rear end. The interior is quite an upgrade from the current model, but is already quite familiar since it resembles that of the new Auris.

Unfortunately Toyoda has not yet given the directive to use small turbo engines like the rest of the motoring world, and so Toyota is stuck with old school naturally aspirated engine technology. In this case it is the 1.6-litre 4-cylinder with 97kW and 160Nm of torque, a 1.8-litre with 108kW and 180Nm as well as the Hybrid model which can be expected sometime in 2014. There should also be a 2.0-litre D-4D turbo diesel 91kW and 310Nm later.

Brand new Corolla launches in Mzansi in early 2014. More details will appear as we approach this very important date.