Did I get your attention? Good. Because Toyota GR Corolla fans are, hmmm? Rabid? Let's just go with "passionate." And so, rather than beat around the bush, here are all the downsides of this car that will surely see my doorstep visited by angry mobs with pitchforks. (Especially if they only read the headline.)Mind you, this critique isn't just from yours truly. My impressions include the thoughts of my friend, Mike, who's owned six VW GTIs and then switched to the GR because you can still get this car with a stick—unlike that Volkswagen. Still, he says his Toyota isn't perfect, and here's some of what he's called out and also what I've experienced: The touchscreen is tiny and kinda cheap, and the software is relatively lag-y, especially slow at startup. The plastic trim looks kinda weak compared to the classier Mazda 3 I just tested—and that's a good bogey as another hot hatch. The GR's loud, with minimal sound deadening. Second-row accommodations are strictly for kids. The GR either looks totally awesome or totally weird. Active Sound Control pipes in a fake engine song through the speakers—which, blessedly, you can silence. Everything I've listed as a demerit fits in one bucket: refinement. Or, really, a lack of it. But I never mentioned the super fun three-cylinder powertrain. Or the slick-shifting MANUAL(!) gearbox. Or the tremendous dynamics. There's so much that's superb about the GR Corolla, it blows all those niggles clean off the table into the trash. Because, if you want a car that'll get your attention and keep it, you want a GR Corolla. Here's a deeper look at everything that's not a downside. Hair On Fire Fun! TopSpeed | Michael FrankToyota isn't messing around with its GR brand. They're going to fiddle and iterate. They're going to push every boundary. My buddy Mike says he's switched channels to Toyota because of this, and because they sell in-house tuner parts that won't void his warranty. He just bought GR-branded springs and dampers, and loves that Toyota will drive toward ever-better performance. His car won't benefit from it, but the 2026 model I just tested got 45.6 feet of structural adhesive to stiffen the body's rigidity. Driving Mike's 2024 GR vs. this one, you could feel that in a somewhat stiffer ride. Rev-Matched Downshifts TopSpeed | Michael FrankHaving a real, genuine, manual gearbox is simply too good and too rare to slide past. I'd probably give the stick in Honda's Civic Type R an A for feel and the Toyota an A-, but they're super close, and the GR features a function called Intelligent Manual Transmission (iMT). Toggle that on for rev-matched downshifts. Nissan offers a similar function on their Z, and ditto the Civic Type R. This saves your drivetrain from the harshness of downshifts at higher RPM—and it sounds super cool! Unfortunately, the pedal spacing in this car could be tighter, so it's difficult to heel-toe, but at least the iMT makes hero driving a little easier. Excellent Dynamics Amee Reehal | TopSpeedNovocaine. That's what you get from most steering wheels these days. Utterly numb on-center sensations even from erstwhile "sporty" cars seem to go hand-in-hand with lane-keeping and electrified power steering. It's as if carmakers don't trust us to know when we're driving in a straight line or noodling around an apex. But the GR Corolla defies the trend with superb on- and off-center steering. Don't close your eyes and drive, please! But you could do that in the GR and sense exactly how the tires are tracking. All-Wheel Drive Engineered For (Some) Antics TopSpeed | Michael FrankSpeaking of the track, this car feels very at home toward the limit—though it defaults to understeer. Toyota's GR-FOUR All-Wheel-Drive system is meant to put some tail-end wiggle back into the formula, and a dial adjacent to the gearshift lets you tweak the front-rear power distribution. The default, Normal, splits that to 60:40, front/rear. Gravel mode swings that to a 50:50 split. Still, the only mode that sort of lets the rear end dance is Track, which is supposed to bias the throttle to whatever wheels need traction, from more front to up to 30:70 rear. Get very heavy with your right foot, twist the tiller, and you can force the rear tires to bust free. However, the default still feels more 50:50, like an O.G. Audi Quattro rather than a BMW M car. Hey, the limits are exceptionally high. And that is a very good thing. A Perfect Song TopSpeed | Michael FrankToyota's three-cylinder powertrain may eventually go away in favor of a four-cylinder. Toyota likes to make hybrids. It buys you instant propulsion, and the rest of the world, if not the U.S., is only going to get tighter on fuel economy standards. As the war with Iran bites everyone in the wallet, you can imagine all carmakers hybridizing more, and it only makes sense for Toyota to amortize costs by using a more common hybrid four-cylinder. But while it exists, the three-cylinder's signature song is hysterically enjoyable. Sure, Toyota sought fit to add a simulated soundtrack through the speakers, but you can kill that and just listen to the pops and burbles as the iMT handles snap downshifts. Some folks probably won't love the moto-like whine at redline. And that's why Toyota also sells more "normal" cars. What Compares? TopSpeed | Michael FrankNot much. Because Toyota bakes in both AWD and a true manual gearbox, plus four doors and decently usable cargo capacity, they've carved out a fairly unique lane for this car. They'll never see huge sales, because most buyers default to crossovers. But at a starting price of $41,315, probably only a Subaru WRX is worth cross-shopping, but that current flavor of Subaru doesn't have nearly the brashness of the GR, and its gearbox, especially, doesn't scale to 11/10ths fun like this Toyota's.A fairer test: The $48,090 Honda Civic Type R. That's a car I personally love. But then you're stacking the front-driver Honda vs. an AWD Toyota. And note the price delta. So then there's the Volkswagen Golf R, which is a hair quicker, with a more powerful, 328-horsepower four-cylinder, and it also has AWD. But you can only get it with the manumatic dual-clutch seven-speed. And it'll run you nearly $51,000. TopSpeed's Take ToyotaOk, a lot of what I raised up top are legit concerns. This car is an acquired taste. And one with narrow appeal. And even if the GR squad will ladder up from the Corolla all the way to the GR GT, you can bet that Toyota would also like to broaden the appeal of GR. On the Toyota side, with the Supra sunsetting, you have to wonder if Toyota is eyeballing a bigger segment for its next GR act. What about a GT crossover with RAV4 rally-ish underpinnings? Yep, easier said than achieved.Yet I'm certain the carmaker will try, because they don't want to be Subaru, with a WRX that appeals to a buyer who has to leave the brand once they outgrow that car. The GR fan isn't likely to want a Highlander next. Making GR into their off-roading TRD label won't happen in 2026, but perhaps by 2028? I'm betting it happens, and I'd also wager the formula keeps improving. Because that's precisely what Toyota does.