Whether you work in cars, movies, or music, it’s all the same—what’s old is new again. Like so many automakers before, Toyota is drawing from its history to add some heat to its current lineup. To that end, it’s released the new Corolla FX, resurrecting the magic letters last seen on the FX16 of 1987. Whether it lives up to the name is for you to decide.
Although, I’ve decided, and it doesn’t.
The new Corolla FX takes the SE trim and jazzes it up a bit. The FX gets an “enhanced” rear spoiler and satin black 18-inch wheels with black lug nuts. It also scores black mirror caps, black badges, and a black roof—the latter more noticeable if you spec the car in a contrasting color. The FX also gets lowering springs for a sportier ride height, and tweaks to the tune for the electric power steering. Inside, there’s orange stitching on the seats, and a bigger infotainment screen.
And… that’s it. No additional horsepower. No raspy exhaust. No wild graphic down the side announcing that you shelled out for the FX. Given the limited offerings of the trim package, though, it’s probably best not to brag about it. Regardless, let’s contrast this with the legendary Corolla FX16 of old. We’re gonna see where Toyota got it wrong.
The Corolla FX16 was an honest-to-goodness hot hatch when it hit the market in 1987. It rocked Toyota’s beloved 4AGE engine, which it shared with the mid-engined MR2 and the rear-wheel-drive Corolla GTS. The engine rocked double-overhead cams, electronic fuel injection, and four valves per cylinder, which helped it deliver 108 horsepower. That was a healthy leap over the 71 hp of the 8-valve carbureted base model, and made the FX16 a pretty hot ship by 1987 standards. Car and Driver went so far as to call it a “pocket rocket” in their contemporary review, and celebrated the upgraded powertrain:
The heart and soul of the FX16 is its motor. The 1.6-liter, twin-cam, sixteen-valve, fuel-injected four-cylinder produces 108 horsepower at 6600 rpm. Interestingly, when this same engine is assigned to duty in the MR2 and the rear-drive GT-S, it produces 112 horses. Toyota attributes the modest power loss to a redesign of the four’s intake and exhaust manifolds, which had to be modified to fit in this Corolla’s engine compartment. Except for plumbing, however, the 4A-GE engine is unchanged. The redline remains at the blender-level 7500 rpm.
The FX16 also got nicer rubber, shod in Goodyear Eagle GTs from the factory. Toyota also saw fit to upgrade the suspension for better handling, including a strut brace to help stiffen up the body. The FX16 was solely available as a three-door hatch, and weighed in at just 2440 pounds.
Japan actually got a Corolla FX first in 1984, under the name FX-GT. Kicking off in 1984, it got a full 128 hp out of the 4AGE, and it even got a huge “TWIN CAM” sticker down the side that made it instantly recognizable in traffic. That rocked. Toyota gave the FX16 three things: more power, better handling, and good looks. Combined with its mean stance and sweet wheels, the thing looked like it was ready to take on all comers. It may not have been a winner at the stoplight drags, taking 9.8 seconds to reach 60 mph, but that wasn’t the point. It had a zippy, high-revving engine, great steering, and it looked the business.
The new Corolla FX is none of those things. It’s a black, white, or grey Corolla that’s a bit lower with some black wheels. It looks just like any other Corolla out there, and I’ll wager it drives like it too. Yes, it’s faster than the old FX16, by virtue of the 169 hp from its 2.0-liter engine. But you can get that in any Corolla!
Where’s the sticker pack? Where’s the dual-exit exhaust with a droney, rorty note when you get the revs up there? Where’s the charm? Honestly. Ten horsepower and a sweet set of graphics, and I’d be writing an entirely different article.
The problem is, Japanese automakers don’t want to put words on cars anymore. They grew up. Apparently we all did.
Other automakers have done this before, too. The Ford Ranger Splash was a rad, fun-loving truck with neat graphics and an outgoing attitude when it launched in the 1990s. Cut to 2021, and Ford brought it back, only this time, it wasn’t the same. It was basically a yellow Ford Ranger barely different from any other. Kind of a shame.
I’m not the only one thinking this way, either. FlavouredMilk reached out on The Autopian Discord channel to share dismay at Toyota’s effort. They went so far as to correct Toyota’s missteps, too, drawing us what the new FX should have looked like. “A few years back, I scribbled this down when I was telling a friend how the new Corolla was kinda hot, and that I’d love them to do a throwback,” says FlavouredMilk. “Sad to hear they did, and botched it.”
I don’t want to be too harsh on Toyota. It’s doing a lot of cool things right now. It brought back the Supra (kind of), it built the GR Yaris and GR Corolla, and there’s some hot new product surely coming down the pipeline. But as far as the new Corolla FX goes? Swing and a miss, as far as I’m concerned.
Image credits: Toyota, FlavouredMilk
why is it so angry? why can’t the small cars just be joyous? Why must it have a furrowed brow and angry eyes and a gapping frowning maw (90% of which is blocked off plastic)?
horrid.
Delete Plz
If Toyota was worried about a real sports variant being salesproof, they could have followed the same path they did with the Corolla Cross, but more so. Corolla Cross Hybrids are mostly SE or XSE trims to emphasize what Toyota likes to think of as “sporty” but really turns out to be a slightly less monochrome upholstery pattern. But an FX-H hatch. which, unlike the sedan and Cross, has no hybrid variant, with a sporting but not uncomfortable suspension upgrade and a little reprogramming for slightly more aggressive (but not mileage-killing) acceleration, would be both respectful of the original and very on-brand for today.
And this also reminds me of the Chevy Nova Twin-Cam, which was a four-door version of the FX16 built alongside it in the NUMMI plant that’s now Tesla’s. I never drove one, and although I liked the Protege LX I ended up with in 1990, I would have liked to try that or the succeeding Geo Prizm GSI hatchback.
I was lucky enough to have a JDM version of the FX hatch while stationed in Japan. Still one of my favorite cars I’ve ever owned.
I daily a ’21 Corolla Hatch 6MT and would love to have an FX version of it today. Alas…
Wow, this is pretty awful.
Here’s a pretty cool yet simple idea for a new variant/upgrade of an existing car:
Ford Maverick Stepside bed panels
Sure it wouldn’t be a true stepside where the bed is a perfect rectangular box, but adding stepside bed panels should be both cheap and easy.
I’m not a pickup guy at all, but this would totally make me happy. I’ve always appreciated that at its best, Ford can be fairly measured with retro touches. At worst, it hits you over the head with them.
My ’02 Mustang has cloth seats that very subtly reference the “pony package” interior that was available on the ’60s cars. It’s not immediately obvious, but if you know about it, it’s a fun little thing.
Not only would it be a bit of a retro touch, but it would be useful, not just an aesthetically pleasing cosmetic.
I’ve never understood the allure of the stepside bed look on a modern truck/trucklet.
With how high truck beds are along with the even higher bedsides having a stepside bed on a modern pickup would be more function than form. I remember in Ford’s early promotional pics for the Maverick there was a pick of a woman standing on her tiptoes to either put something in or grab something out of the bed (can’t remember which at the moment) while they touted how the “low” bedsides made it easier for people to grab stuff out of the bed.
I’m not advocating for Ford to come out with stepside looking bed panels, I want them to function as stepsides, not just look the part.
As an 18-year-old I wanted an FX16 so badly. I loved the idea of an indestructible corolla made into a hot hatch.
They could at least made it a hatchback that is better and faster than the base Corolla and a stepping stone to the GR.
Give it the GR motor slightly detuned and keep it FWD and it would slot right in beneath it.
Ah yes, another “special edition” car that, in five years, won’t be worth any (or much) more than the standard model.
THIS IS WHAT TOYOTA DOES ANYMORE!!! It’s all stickers, useless spoilers, fake louvres, and bolt-on nothing. Marketing, marketing, marketing. They don’t even make their own sports cars. They don’t even ENGINEER their own sports cars. Just slap a different bumper on it, a different spoiler, wheels, and superficial nothingness. Then, when they do make something that people want (off road type stuff), they have to make sure the marketing department is prepared with BS excuses for drum brakes in 2023 that don’t hold up to the slightest scrutiny. Completely lost their way. They’re not even all that “reliable” any more, but they still do their best to trade on that reputation. Eventually the public will figure it out, and Toyota will be in deep kimchi.
Thank Athena they don’t engineer their own sports cars! Outsourcing was the smartest thing they could do. They were terrible at driver control feel and chassis communication back when they still made sports cars, never mind after 20 years of building meh in an era of cars where lack of feel and communication is an industry-wide problem.
The hatchback is RIGHT THERE in their lineup already. Honestly, what are we doing?
Im not a fan of Toyota’s mass market appliance cars at all, especially lately. I’ve taken to changing a letter or 2 in their model names to reflect my feelings towards them. The Corolla becomes Bore-olla and the RAV4 is a RAV-bore, Avalon becomes Avayawn and their midsized pickup has coma right there in the name. While I do admit the new Prius is pretty sharp, I still call the old one the Prenis.
They could’ve at least made the new FX a hatchback
*rolleyes emoji*
Nothing is as it was 40 years ago. It can never be, so move on. Instead of retreading memories, make new ones.
When you name something after something else you give it a standard to live up to. The very nature of bringing an old nameplate back out is to evoke the recollection of past desires. When the product doesn’t live up to those desires it’s the most obvious to the people they were trying to appeal to in the first place by giving it that name.
The funny thing is how far they’re stretching for something (they think is) of interest to even bring back.
Eh, I’m not a fan of the huge words on the old one.
There should be “words” on every car–the brand name (or logo), the model name, and maybe the trim level.
And really, if I have any beef with the new one, it’s that I want smaller tires, dammit!
The tires! It’s a damn Corolla—it’s never going to be a fun car that encourages running curves where low profiles might be useful and it will take a lot more than wheels to make the thing look cool, so let it ride nicer on smaller wheels with cheaper-to-replace tires.
If they could fit the Toyota Camry 2.5 engine in these, then we are talking!
Does this replace the apex trim from a couple years ago? Sounds pretty similar but I don’t care enough to look it up.
As far as excitement in the Corolla lineup goes, you either get a low power I4 tied to a CVT, or you get an high strung 3-cylinder AWD beast that Toyota will manufacture in the dozens.
I feel like there is some room in between there for a warm version, preferably a manual hatchback. While only SUVs are selling, it probably doesn’t make financial sense.
They had a manual hatch. They developed a whole new manual trans just for the corolla, and supposedly it was a joy to use. Then they made like 3 of the things, and claimed that they weren’t selling any and stopped making it. Now they sell for several grand over a comparable automatic because they are rare and there is a small but enthusiastic market for them.
That’s just a function of the way dealerships in the US order cars. I’d be OK with waiting if I could order a car the way I want it. I’d even order direct from Toyota to avoid stepping into a dealership.
I know but it makes me sad. There have been so many times where dealers never have cars, so no one buys them (you know, because they’re not available) and then the manufacturers discontinue them because “there’s no demand” but yeah you can’t order a car from Toyota, so if you can’t find it in stock near you, you can’t buy it.
Toyota has an allocation system, not a dealer ordering system. THEY decide who gets what cars. If they had pumped whatever interesting cars onto dealer lots, they would have sold more. You can’t order a car with whatever options you want from Toyota, you have to either take what they give you, or look all over the country to find the exact one you want wherever it is, if it exists, if you’re lucky, and if you’re willing to pay more because by doing so you’re marked as willing to pay more.
Potato, potato.
There are plenty of ways for dealerships to communicate their wishes back to Toyota in ways that (depending on your sales volume) may influence your allocation. They couldn’t influence it in any way that would result in an interesting Toyota, though.
Considering what we’re talking about (Corolla), I wouldn’t be willing to pay more. A higher budget opens up better options. It would have to be a very special Corolla to get me to pay a premium.
I’m not disputing, but there may be a little more to it. So, I ordered a GR86 the day they opened the order books. The dealer told me how Toyota doesn’t do orders, they get an allocation for x number of specific cars and it was a bit down to luck on timeline and such as to when they’d get what I wanted (and if I had an alternate preference), but if a car being delivered to port by Toyota had the right configuration, they could claim it, which is how I got what I wanted 6 weeks later (that and luck). Of course, I’m taking a lower level dealer employee’s word (to give credit, the dealer didn’t tack on any charges and I had never bought from the before to get extra consideration, so at least they weren’t scummy), so maybe the dealer can skew what they get from what’s allotted to the country (I assume in a first-come-first-serve manner), maybe not. Certainly, that’s not anything like a customer special order, but it does offer a better chance at getting something one wants (or pretty close) than no consideration at all.
I special ordered a 1st year mk3 Focus hatch from Ford (to get a manual—which turned out to be an especially smart decision in the wake of the DCT debacle—with the sport package) and it took 11 weeks. I don’t know why Toyota couldn’t do something similar in less time other than that they just don’t care as the logistical costs aren’t worth their time when they’re able to sell so many other cars in more standard (pun intended) configurations to people who DGAF about cars or want a reliable daily they don’t care about to save the car they actually like from commuting and errand duty.
I’ll gladly custom order and pre-pay or whatever. I can deal with 11 weeks as long as the f*n dealership doesn’t sell my custom ordered car out from under me when it arrives on their lot.
That transmission was, indeed, a welcome departure of previous Toyota transmissions I’ve driven. Smooth, easy to shift, and with some rather nice ratios.
I wasn’t much a fan of the rest of the hatchback package.
Yeah, I thought of buying one, but the wait was listed as something like 8 months. For a f’n Corolla?! Obviously, they just weren’t building them and then they dropped it the next year. Lack of demand doesn’t have a 2/3 year waiting list on a car made in the 6-figure volumes. Anyway, the GR86 came out at that time and I bought one for less than $2k more.
The FX16 was wonderful. No Corolla since has even made it to “interesting.” As the man who owns one (me)….
Sadly, every FX16 I’ve seen in years (not many) has been hooned to near-death. But when new they were a blast to drive, with a decent chassis and an engine that loved being wound out to the redline.
Wish I had one. Hell, wish I had one of the OG Hot Hatches instead of a snoozemobile. I can’t even imagine how much duller it would be with an iPad on the dash and no physical controls to operate, which at least my older model lacks.
Oh, well. Cars are better now. Too bad “better” seems to have been accompanied by “duller.”
To be fair, the FX-16 was substantially different from the base car, unlike the old Ranger Splash – which, like the new Ranger Splash, was just a specific combination of existing Ranger options with some stickers. This new FX certainly falls into the “warmed over” category, which is disappointing given how raucus the old one was. Too bad I can’t recall having seen an FX-16 in the wild in at least 25 years.
My question is why? Who wanted an FX-16 that would want this new one? I’ve never heard of it cuz i was born 5 years after it came out, and I am aged out of buying corollas. There already is the hot hatch version of the Corolla. Maybe they could have used the name on the GRC, or made it a sticker pack for the GRC.
Also, please stop just balancing the ipad on the dash and calling it good. Put it in the damn dash board.
Toyota has to really stretch for performance heritage, especially on a Corolla. The GR86 (like, 99% Subaru) references one in a way even a lot of car people wouldn’t know if they didn’t read what it was or heard from a youtuber because, before only nerds even knew about the manga that made it memorable, those cars were a shrug in the States—yeah, a RWD coupe, like almost everyone had at the time (though they were converting over to FWD, including the following generation Corolla). Nobody who asks what my car is knows what it means and everyone seems over the alphanumeric model names. They should have just called it a Celica (not that those were all that special aside from maybe the turbo All-Trac that, like the MKIV Supra, was thought of as middling in its day with Toyota’s longstanding tradition of inability to imbue feel and communication into their vehicles, though I’m sure one would feel like a Lotus 7 when compared to today’s horrible cars). And what Toyota actually does is reference the 2000GT in the design instead of a Corolla or Celica as it’s their tsunami highwater mark (designed by a German as the rejected proposal for the 240Z which the GR86 is far more a successor to than the current Z, but that’s another rant).
Black wheels earn an automatic blackball in my book.
Exactly. The murdered out look is long dead, not a good look, ever.
Not looking at a Corolla, but if I was would be asking the dealer to do a wheel swap with something less crap looking to do a deal. YMMV.
The FX was a great car. This one is no FX, except in name only.
It’s like when Hollywood does a sequel to a great movie, and uses totally different cast, and then wonders why the box office take sucks.
Yeah, fun has been dead for a long time now. Especially in the economy car realm.
I guess there’s no market for it anymore, but I really appreciated when there were more “mid-level” options for commuters. Now we’re very much stuck with either soul-less CVT laden techno-lump, or one-bazillion horsepower vape-cloud machine with 200 fake vents that triples your insurance premium.
That’s a great insight about the mid-level – there used to plenty of stuff that might skimp on power to keep the price down, but would have things like manuals and reasonably decent suspensions to keep the experience fun and engaging.
But per your thinking, that “fun” was replaced by “tech” b/c it’s much easier and probably cheaper to mount a bigger screen and promise sure you can connect your phone to it and do the non-driving-related things you really love.
There’s been a number of cars lately where you can somehow add 10-15k in options, yet receive no powertrain upgrade. That’s incredibly lame to me. Subaru recently fixed this in the Impreza, but I remember looking at those a few years back and asking myself how the loaded example could be 10k over the base price but have the driving experience itself unchanged.
My parents were of the generation that always bought the uplevel engine option; me, I’d usually buy the base version just to be able to get the manual.
But now, it’s like neither is really an option in many cases – you’re stuck with a single engine with an auto.
FX-16…that’s a name I haven’t thought of in a long time. I recall that when it was released, it was something of an answer to the GTI, at a time when the GTI had lost the script a little by becoming a bit heavier. The FX-16 was very much an updated version of the scrappy original GTI.
I can say from experience that the 2.0 in this is downright agricultural and the CVT drone is brutal at highway speeds. Also, Torch should have included in his EV weight article the fact that the ID.4 is heavier than *two* FX16s!!
ironically, it looks like the back seat is roomier on the original two-door hatch than the new sedan.
I would bet better head room in the old one in the back.
Wow black wheels and black accents on a gray car! I’ve never seen anything like that before….