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Corolla Sportwagon?

By Harabingatz, February 29, 2016



Has anyone heard that Toyota plans on manufacturing a Corolla "sport wagon" type vehicle..... ?? Sounds cool.

Toyota has always had Corolla wagons - just not very popular in the US / North American market.

Well, in North America - the closest thing that came at a "sport wagon" turned out to be the Toyota Matrix / Pontiac Vibe for two generations spanning model years 2003-2008 and 2009-2014.

The first generation Matrix XRS and Pontiac GT with the same high revving 1.8L 2ZZ-GE engine and running gear as in the short lived 7th gen Celica GT-S. Actually had pretty decent performance compared to their stablemates - but they didn't sell well enough or meet future emissions - so they were axed with the coming 2nd gen.

Once Scion discontinues operations later this year - Toyota will likely absorb the Scion iM (new hatchback) and release it at a Corolla hatchback. Overseas (JDM market), that model is already existed under the Toyota Auris name. A cleaner looking vehicle - but don't count much in the "sport" aspect - only have the standard Corolla 1.8L engine with only CVT as rumors point to Toyota dropping the 6-speed stick option.

The look of the iM is similar to the European Auris, although they've come up with a look which borrows heavily from the VW Golf's front end. Is a good look, but how they'll reconcile it with their US version is unknown. Toyota USA have decided to integrate the look of their hydrogen car, the Mirai, into the refresh of the US spec Corolla sedan. Should be horrible, but what do they care about style? All they had to do was manufacture the Furia concept, but no, they would not. That aside, perhaps now that Scion is abolished, perhaps the US can expect some similarity in style across the range. We can only hope that: 1) Their US spec offerings will be similar to that which customers in Europe get, and; 2) Toyota will FINALLY get real and produce their brilliant concept vehicles just as they are with little attention paid to the wishes of their bean counters (as Honda have decided to do).

We can hope. Toyota enthusiasts would love to have oversea's market Toyotas pulled into our showrooms untouched. But likely Toyota will spec one and then end up mess it up specifically to satisfy the masses in the North American market.

The Sciburu twins (Scion FR-s / Subaru BRZ) almost made that happen - but lack of aftermarket support from manufacturuer + dismal sales pretty much doomed it.

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