HEY! TOYOTA! Now that you don't need to do the Scion one-trim, one-price thing anymore

"PanchoVilleneuve ST" (PanchoVilleneuve) 05/04/2016 at 00:29 • Filed to: None

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Take this:

Drop in the engine out of this:

Stiffen up the suspension, throw some sticky tires on it, call it the Corolla GT-S and make approximately all the money.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > PanchoVilleneuve ST 05/04/2016 at 00:32

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That would be too good of an idea. Not gonna happen.

PanchoVilleneuve ST > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo 05/04/2016 at 00:35

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I bet our homeboy Akio suggested it at least once during a board meeting and was met by a room full of men shaking their head in silence.

Birddog > PanchoVilleneuve ST 05/04/2016 at 00:36

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For 11 people?

Toyota is smarter than that. I think.

PanchoVilleneuve ST > Birddog 05/04/2016 at 00:38

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Because the North American market isn’t totally in the middle of a hot hatch renaissance or anything.

WhiskeyGolf > PanchoVilleneuve ST 05/04/2016 at 00:41

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I’m actually quite surprised Toyota doesn’t have a legit hot hatch contender. They’ve got such a parts catalogue the overhead would be so minimal and they would boost their cred in the enthusiast community.

Birddog > PanchoVilleneuve ST 05/04/2016 at 00:47

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Ford has the lead. GM is half assing as usual and Fiat-Chrysler is as manic-depressive as it has been since the 1980s.

You may be on to something but I don’t see Honda really caring about the “enthusiast” any time soon. They prefer to make money.

PanchoVilleneuve ST > WhiskeyGolf 05/04/2016 at 00:59

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Especially since Mazda says there won’t be a Mazdaspeed3 and the hatch-bodied Civic Si/Type-We-Promise-Type-R-In-America-For-Realsies-This-Time is stuck in a perpetual state of “eventually”, the only Japanese car available in the segment is the Juke Nismo RS, but that’s both too expensive and too weird to be a serious contender, even if it’s absolutely brilliant to drive (and it is brilliant to drive, it’s just not not 28,000 dollars brilliant).

Shit, between the Veloster Turbo, the Elantra GT with the confusingly named “style package” and the “we forgot to tell you this car exists” Forte5 SX, the Koreans are offering 3 hot hatches here (and they really should make it 4 by putting the 1.6 turbo either the Accent or the Rio to take on the Fiesta ST).

Scion was their attempt to capture the youth market, and it failed because they didn’t offer what young buyers actually want: a car that is fun without sacrificing practicality, and that’s exactly what a hot hatch is.

PanchoVilleneuve ST > Birddog 05/04/2016 at 01:04

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That’s the thing, though, the hot hatch isn’t really an “enthusiast car” (even though enthusiasts love them). The hot hatch is a car for people who want to have a bit of fun but need a practical car to do practical car things, but can only have one car.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > PanchoVilleneuve ST 05/04/2016 at 01:07

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I like the Forte5 SX quite a lot, but it is pricey and I so wish it just had aliiiiiittle deeper hatch

PanchoVilleneuve ST > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo 05/04/2016 at 01:21

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It’s a great car that would be a big hit if they bothered to tell anyone about it. Before I got my FoST, I testdrove pretty much every hot hatch currently on the market, and the Forte5 SX was one of the better ones.

Bytemite > PanchoVilleneuve ST 05/04/2016 at 01:32

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Oooh a Rio hatch with the 1.6 turbo would be sweet. The Forte5 SX is already good looking but the Rio would tear things up! Of course, they still don’t compare to the Veloster Rally edition. :P

PanchoVilleneuve ST > Bytemite 05/04/2016 at 01:49

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Well, a matte blue car is better than any car that isn’t matte blue. I just wish they still did the whole high-gloss red trim you could get a couple years back with the track package or whatever they called the “all the sport options, none of the luxury ones” trim level like the one they did with the Genesis Coupe.

AddictedToM3s - Drives a GC > PanchoVilleneuve ST 05/04/2016 at 02:00

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I like where you’re going with this. Let’s take it another step further:

Take this:

Drop in the engine out of this:

Stiffen the suspension and silence every single last hater out there. And make a ton of money while they’re at it.

Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura > PanchoVilleneuve ST 05/04/2016 at 03:20

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Too risky and too much of a financial hassle. If you want performance, just tell them to improve it and sell it as it is.

duurtlang > PanchoVilleneuve ST 05/04/2016 at 05:08

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Meh, even in Europe, the hot-hatch continent of the world, this Euro-Corolla isn’t offered as a hot hatch. It’s probably because of a combination of factors, some of them being the target demographic of this compact (the elderly and Prius-people) and the chassis. It’s not like the utterly numb driving experience can be fixed easily. There’s a reason the fastest of the 5 engines available in the current Auris does 0-62 in 10 seconds flat.

This is the reality of most I see in real life:

They take this:

And drop in the drive train (but smaller batteries if I’m not mistaken) of this:

Bytemite > PanchoVilleneuve ST 05/04/2016 at 11:20

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The R-spec for the Gen coupe and Veloster are like that. No camera sensors, no sunroof, no heated seats, and so on. The Rally edition is an R-Spec with additional enthusiast mods thrown in there. But I dont know why Hyundai stopped making the 2.0T R-Spec Gen coupe. That was the one to have.