2025 Toyota GR Corolla First Drive: Automatic, For the People

Toyota’s GR Corolla made a big splash when it debuted in 2022, and rightfully so. Of course enthusiasts were excited: The aggressive upstart came standard with 300 turbocharged horsepower, a manual transmission sending power to a trick all-wheel-drive system, and enough pace to threaten the hottest versions of the reigning hot hatch nameplates, Golf and Civic. For 2025, the GR Corolla iteratively improves upon its successful original recipe and opens up the fun to a broader array of buyers with the addition of a new eight-speed automatic transmission.

Toyota hosted us at Charlotte Motor Speedway’s road course-oval to showcase the GR Corolla’s updates. We hopped in and out of different cars all day, so we got to experience the gamut of the GR Corolla trims—the familiar Core and Premium, and the renamed top spec, Premium Plus. The structure of what you get in each remains familiar, and the interior accoutrements remain mostly unchanged from 2023–24.

The Core fits what all people over the age of, say, 35, will remember as the brief for a hot hatch: souped-up in the areas that impact the fun factor, coupled with an utterly basic interior that includes some grippy seats. Compared to the attractive utility of the Civic Type R, the design inside feels very economy car, but the manually adjustable seats (six-way driver and four-way passenger) are well-bolstered and comfortable, the stereo is fine but not nearly as nice as its Hyundai or Honda/Acura competition, and the climate control is one-zone only.

Premium and Premium Plus up the niceties on the interior, taking the speaker count from six to eight with a JBL system that’s marginally better, adding synthetic leather and Brin-Naub (a suede-like fabric) surfaces to the same seats, and including dual-zone climate control. The outside of the mid- and upper-tier cars are differentiated by variations in color and finish of trim, and the Premium Plus cars get hood vents, a hood bulge, and a forged carbon-fiber roof.

On to what’s been improved. It might be too strong to consider the tweaks a mid-cycle refresh, but the changes are nonetheless significant—through extensive racing in Japan’s Super Taikyu endurance series and a couple of years of real-world street experience, Toyota has identified several subtleties and a few big tweaks to improve and open up the driving experience.

Specs: 2025 Toyota GR Corolla Automatic

• Price: $41,955 Core, $48,610 Premium Plus (as-tested, including $1095 dealer fees)
• Powertrain: 1.6-liter turbocharged three-cylinder, eight-speed paddle-shifted automatic
• Output: 300 hp; 295 lb-ft
• Layout: Front-engine, five door, all-wheel-drive hatchback
• Weight: 3319 lbs Core automatic, 3347 lbs Premium Plus automatic
• 0–60 mph: 4.9 seconds (manufacturer’s estimate)
• Competitors: Subaru WRX, Honda Civic Type R, Hyundai Elantra N

All trims benefit from a tune revision to the punchy little 1.6-liter three-cylinder that provides a bump in torque of 22 lb-ft, now up to 295 (equaling the ’23 Morizo Edition). While the overall output rating hasn’t changed from 300 hp, Toyota says it has increased in the lower end of the rev range.

Walk up to any ’25 GR-olla and you’ll notice a revised, mouthy front fascia that allows more air to cool its important bits. Automatic–equipped cars get a transmission cooler ahead of the driver’s side front wheel, and room for an engine sub-radiator (unavailable on the Core but optional on the Premium and standard on the Premium Plus) exists on the passenger side.

Under the skin, revised bolts on the steering column, on the connection between the lower front ball joints and the control arms, and between the shock absorbers and the chassis are said to aid in rigidity with the goal of the driver feeling connected to the car. Again, subtleties.

The twin-tube shock absorbers incorporate internal rebound springs all around to help keep the car planted, and the rear suspension trailing arm mounting point has been raised to provide greater anti-squat geometry. Toyota’s also upped the rear coil spring stiffness with a new dual-rate unit while slightly reducing the rear sway bar diameter. In plain English, the engineers stiffened the rear of the car to help the front grip better under acceleration.

The vaunted all-wheel drive system governed by the dial on the center console has also been updated. The Normal and Gravel settings dole out power 60/40 front/rear and 50/50 front/rear, respectively. The Track setting, previously a fixed ratio, now varies on the fly between 60/40 (front-biased) and 30/70 (rear biased). All trims feature standard Torsen differentials front and rear.

Most prominent on the stat sheet is the eight-speed, paddle-shiftable “Gazoo Racing Direct Automatic Transmission.” The torque-converter automatic was first added to the GR Yaris for 2024 and is also found in the Lexus LBX Morizo RR, a plucky entry-lux crossover debuting for 2025. Neither are available on our shores, but with supply chain and manufacturing scaling, it was only a matter of time before we found the DAT, as Toyota calls it, in the GR Corolla. It’s a smart decision—let’s face it, the manual-transmission-proficient populace is a minority—and Toyota’s probably right in thinking that plenty of folks will line up to pay the extra $2K to spec the optional autobox in their GR Corolla.

Zero-to-60 times for the manual and automatic are both quoted at 4.9 seconds, though the automatics do have a nifty and easy-to-engage launch control mode that we were allowed to try just once. The Toyota team indicated that lap times in their testing were about equivalent between manual and automatic GR Corollas, so this is a rare instance where a modern automatic doesn’t embarrass the old-school row-your-own ’box in the numbers game.

Now, let’s talk about what this car is and what it isn’t.

There’s been a tremendous amount of exuberance among the automotive press and influencers about the GR Corolla’s handling, particularly its willingness to rotate and its front-end grip. These make for compelling hot-hatch storylines, especially for a car that is a welcome addition to what seems to be an ever-shrinking affordable-ish enthusiast-car segment. But they’re not entirely accurate, and those who are interested in what is nonetheless an excellent car deserve to know its traits rather than read another glossed-over celebration.

A quick bit about me so it’s clear I’m not being a contrarian just for the sake of it: I race a 125-cc kart on road courses like Mid-Ohio and have raced a Miata in SCCA competition since 2006. Discerning a vehicle’s dynamic balance and working within its parameters is something I’ve spent a fair amount of time doing, both for fun and for work.

The GR Corolla has proven its pace on track against the likes of the Civic Type R and Hyundai Elantra N in numerous comparison tests, so it is quick. But in the dry, the GR Corolla is decidedly not tail-happy. It is, after all, based on front-wheel-drive architecture and carries 60 percent of its weight over the front wheels. Understeer has not been magically dialed out by its very capable all-wheel-drive system, or the revised anti-squat rear suspension geometry incorporated in the 2025 models.

You still very much wheel the GR Corolla as if it were a front-drive car—trail brake to get grip on the nose during initial turn-in to a corner, get the car aimed by the time you roll back on throttle, then manage the understeer and the wider line it creates through corner exit. This attitude presents itself most prominently through mid- and higher-speed corners.

Different though it may be from how some have described it, in no way does this characteristic take away from what a fundamentally good car this is. The real joy in the GR Corolla is how Toyota has succeeded in making it an inherently friendly partner for spirited driving, offering serious pace and amusement without edginess. This year’s tweaks augment the fun without penalty.

Among Charlotte’s mix of infield corners is a hairpin left that heads back onto the oval. The GR lives for this kind of tighter, slower corner where it can most effectively apply its power. Hit the confidence-inspiring brake pedal, get the car rotated—the steering is communicative but not sharp on turn-in like the Civic Type R, another hint at its capable-not-highly strung personality—and roll assertively into the throttle ahead of the apex. The Michelin Pilot 4 tires claw their way through, and you begin to appreciate the GR Corolla’s compact footprint and all-wheel drive.

Unwind the wheel and head onto the oval, and the little three-pot’s torque builds speed more than you expect for anything that has “1.6-liter”, “three-cylinder”, and “four wheels” in its list of descriptors. Power feels healthy across the rev range and well-matched to the platform. Being a sucker for odd-cylinder-count engines, I’d like a little more noise, or more precisely, a tuned system that better captures the character of what’s one of the more distinctive engines on the market today.

As for the new automatic transmission, it continues the accommodating and approachable themes. In full auto mode, the harder you drive, the more assertive it becomes, smoothly kicking down through the gears under braking. Choose to select your own gears with the cheap-ish feeling mechanism actuated by plastic paddles, and you’re met with smooth but not lightning-quick shifts. Fortunately, it will hold your gear and not upshift should you hit the 7000-rpm limiter.

Whether you let it shift itself or you click your own gears, the transmission steadfastly won’t let you disrupt the car’s balance. If you’re carrying lateral g’s and want to grab a lower gear, either with more throttle pedal or an attempted paddle downshift, in certain circumstances it may deny you. On the track, that may prompt you to add some entry speed on that corner the next time around or time your shifts differently, but such behavior led me to wonder how it would behave on a brisk back-road drive.

Unfortunately, the only time we got to sample the GR Corolla on the street was a highway trip from the hotel to the track, and briefly again in Charlotte’s rush hour. It was comfortable in both circumstances, but as much as my colleagues enjoyed their time in a manual GR Corolla in Ohio’s Hocking Hills earlier this year, I’d hoped to see how the automatic performed in similar environs.

And that’s probably where the GR Corolla, especially the automatic model, will ply its trade—blasting down a Road of the Year-candidate back road on the weekends in between shuttling its owner between work and life’s other activities. For that broad set of duties, it’ll likely be hard to beat. This car doesn’t need any exaggeration to succeed in the market—it’s not perfect, but it’s as capable as anything in its segment, is easy to hop in and drive quickly, and now comes with two pedals. Toyota’s commitment to providing fun in all sorts of flavors continues.

2025 Toyota GR Corolla Automatic

Highs: Easy to drive quickly; well-matched chassis and drivetrain; a recipe unlike anything else.
Lows: Automatic transmission could be a little sharper-witted; cabin isn’t up to par with competition.
Takeaway: The GR Corolla Automatic welcomes a broader array of enthusiasts into the fray without sacrificing much. As such, it’s an ever-improving car that should be celebrated.