Regular readers will recall that just a few weeks ago it was discovered that Toyota’s North American arm was dropping teasers for the upcoming GR Corolla on Instagram.
The teaser features all manner of clues about the much rumoured hot hatch. Numbers rendered on the dashboard and digital cluster of a standard Corolla were seen as references to the Corolla’s likely power plant. And a tiny image of what appears to be the GR Corolla in camouflage could be seen in the background.
Now, Toyota has published another teaser image on social media. And this time it didn’t take sleuths a month to discover it.
The photo shows a GR Corolla not-so-subtly hiding in the background of a photo of a Corolla ZR hatch. The shot gives us our first closer-up image of the GR Corolla, allowing us to pick out some of the model’s styling elements.
It’s grainy, but you can see the GR Corolla features a much larger front intake. It’s hard to tell whether it features a similar bumper design to the GR Yaris, as suggested by previous renderings from speculators.
Most notably, the Corolla clearly features a “GR Four” sticker on the side, the best tangible indication yet that the model will get four-wheel drive. Toyota also continues to tease that the model will get the same turbocharged three-cylinder as in the GR Yaris, showing the 1.6-litre’s engine code detailing on a container in the background.
As previously reported, the model is likely to be unveiled in full in 2022, exclusively with a manual transmission and a wider track. It’s also been reported that the model is likely to get more power than the GR Yaris’ 268hp (200kW).