SO POPULAR THEY HAVE TO GET RID OF IT (via Tom Morin):

Toyota Corolla: The World's Favourite Car (Sean O'Grady, 25 September 2006 , Independent)

No son ever begged his dad to buy a Toyota Corolla. No one ever put a poster of the Corolla on their bedroom wall. For petrolheads the world over, the Corolla has always been the ultimate anti-car car, if not the anti-Christ.

Judged against the more interesting machinery available at the time it was launched, in 1966, it was dull indeed. By comparison with the Mini, say, or the Citroën DS, or virtually anything from Italy, the Toyota was automotive grey porridge. It was conventional, it was anonymous looking and it was completely unambitious in design. It has remained so ever since.

Despite its huge popularity, the Corolla doesn't have, and never did have, much of a "personality". It has inspired neither art nor anthropomorphosis. Would The Italian Job have been quite so much fun if they'd tried to rob a bank in three Corollas? Could Herbie ever have been a Corolla? Would Thelma and Louise have been seen dead in one?

Even car fans have some difficulty in remembering more than one or two of its many incarnations over the years. Being inside a Corolla has never been a treat for the senses. Early versions had a certain period charm, but the overwhelming use of brittle grey plastic and plain grey velour in its later guises have been narcoleptic, reminiscent of the John Major Spitting Image puppet. The Toyota Corolla never had the cute baby-like "face" of the Mini or Fiat Cinquecento or Beetle; it was a hard face to fall in love with.

Nor has the Corolla ever been much fun to drive. It's not difficult to drive, in the way a Citroën 2CV or a Renault 4 might be with their gear sticks sticking out of the dashboard, but it isn't very "involving", as the motoring journalist usually puts it. A Mini, an Escort or a Golf offers an entertaining driving experience, but not the Toyota.

Yet for all its boringness, the Corolla is the biggest-selling car of all time, at least in terms of its nameplate. OK, Anoraks may argue that the best-selling car (as opposed to nameplate) is in fact the VW Beetle, which, during its 60 years, has seen some 21,529,464 models rolled out. But the fact remains that, over the course of four decades, the name Corolla has been glued to some 32 million vehicles.

We keep one in the glove compatment of our Suburban, in case of emergency.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 10, 2006 4:00 PM