Short Take Road Test
You’re in the market for a small, affordable car, but you’re also an enthusiast—you want something sporty. You have a budget of $23,000 or so. What do you buy?
Some of us here at Car and Driver would pick the Volkswagen GTI. It has loads of space and a high-quality interior, and it’s one of the best-performing cars on the road at the price. Heck, we’ve named it to our 10Best Cars list two years running. If not the GTI, the rest of the chuckleheads on Hogback Road would probably go for the Mazdaspeed 3. Fast, capable, and as useful as a GTI, the Mazda is also a two-time 10Best winner.
Previously, we wouldn’t have considered a Toyota Corolla, but that’s a possibility now with the 2009 Corolla XRS. With an as-tested sticker of $22,755, the XRS steps on the toes of some small cars that offer serious performance, including the new Chevrolet Cobalt SS and the Honda Civic Si.
Sport-Compact Let-Down
It would seem at first blush that Toyota aimed for the heart of the hopped-up micromachine market; after all, it checked all the boxes for creating a sporty compact. The XRS is faster and stops better than a base Corolla (7.9 seconds to 60 and 70 to 0 in 175 feet versus 8.6 seconds and 194 feet). It has more roll stiffness, a firmer suspension, and more grip (0.84 g versus 0.79 g) than a base Corolla. And the XRS is more aggressive looking than a base Corolla, thanks to tasteful and well-integrated body mods that don’t sear your eyeballs like the horrible, tumorlike growths found on some last-gen Corollas.
But Toyota missed the key ingredient in making a successful sport compact, and that’s fun. The XRS does what it does well, but none of it spectacularly. It goes about its business in a matter-of-fact fashion more reminiscent of a Camry than anything else. There’s no rorty exhaust note, no singing from under the hood, no verve to its motions. And let’s face it, a 0-to-60 run in the sevens isn’t exactly quick these days; the Mazdaspeed 3 does it in 5.4.
Steering, clutch, and shifter feel are nonexistent. The larger 158-horse, 2.4-liter inline-four is just as personality-free as the 132-hp 1.8-liter found in non-XRS Corollas. The suspension—tuned for firmness and generally quite capable, even though the Corolla’s ride sometimes borders on flinty—never begs to boogie down a back road. The XRS is a point-A-to-point-B toaster in a body kit.
Compact-Runabout Success
It is in this basic-transportation mission, though, where the XRS succeeds. If you don’t slide behind the wheel expecting to have your skull pop and your fingertips sizzle, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
