VW REALLY REVVED UP WITH DEAL
TREK is a bicycle company that’s based in Wisconsin, USA. I’d heard of them but our bikes are British-made machines.
They’re hybrids which means that they’re not bad on road and capable of going off-road through woods and along muddy tracks.
But then you probably know this already.
You might even have what marketing people refer to as an
“active lifestyle” and do loads of cycling across rugged terrain.
If you do, then Toyota will be hoping that you will be interested in purchasing its new Corolla Trek.
So here we go, I hope you’re feeling adventurous.
The Trek is based on the Corolla Touring Sports, or estate to you and me. Toyota developed this car with the bicycle company but I suspect in reality this consisted of a couple of legal people in suits signing a licensing agreement so Toyota could use the name.
Oh, and Toyota does sponsor Trek’s European racing teams.
Height
The car itself didn’t really need a vast amount of developing because, for one thing, the template for making an estate car a bit more rugged and active lifestyle-y is set in stone.
Or mud, if you prefer. Audi did the job with its All Road, Volvo with the Cross Country, Skoda with its Octavia Scout and many others have done similar.
It’s simple: raise the suspension to increase the ride height so that bits like exhausts aren’t torn off and add some plastic cladding around the wheel arches, some faux protective plates under the front and rear bumpers and there you go.
Which is exactly what Toyota has done with the Corolla Trek. The suspension has been tweaked to give an extra 20mm of ride height and underbody protection has been fitted. The Trek is two-wheel drive and is not fitted with any off-road biased traction control system as are many 2wd crossovers.
Neither is it fitted with anything other than standard road tyres. To be fair to Toyota, increased ground clearance is all that most customers, even the active ones, will need.
A Corolla Trek is a Trek so there is no choice of trim level. What you do get to choose is engine size.
Both the 1.8-litre and 2.0-litre petrol engines are part of a hybrid powertrain using Toyota’s wellproven and hugely reliable technology. The smaller engine produces 122bhp and the larger one 184bhp.
The price jump from the 1.8 to 2.0 isn’t that large as the less powerful Trek costs £29,225 and the 2.0-litre £30,950.
We’re testing the Corolla Trek in the latter, more powerful form and
REAR MIRROR MONSTER: Once, you wouldn’t have noticed a Corolla but the new one has got a distinctive X-shaped face.
BACKSIDE BEAUTY: Bit higher off the ground than standard model.
PLAYTIME PLEASER: Won’t scrape its bottom on off-road tracks.
NAUGHTY NIGGLES: The CVT gearbox makes the engine sound as annoying
VOLKSWAGEN is running an offer that gives buyers of its light commercial vehicles using contract hire packages three months payment free and also no upfront costs.
VW is calling it a “back in white with the exclusive-to-trek black 17in alloy wheels. The Corolla is an attractive looking motor, a million times more appealing than the dull Auris that went before it.
The only thing that car had going for it was incredible reliability and that, when it comes down to it, is pretty important.
Those black wheels and the black plastic cladding do give the Corolla Touring Sports a more functional look and the 20mm increase in ride height adds something to the mix,
as a Hoover does when you’re trying to watch telly.
TASTY TOUCHES: Sensible infotainment system with knobs for heating and audio volume.
FAST OR LAST: engine.
WONGA WONDER: You’re paying a lot for the style and image over a normal Corolla estate.
Go for the more powerful to work” offer but there is quite a bit of small print involved.
You’ll have to order the van before the end of June, it’ll have to be a vehicle that’s in stock and it’ll have to be delivered to the too. Step inside and you’ll see the brown and grey upholstery that’s also standard on the Trek.
It sounds as exciting as the inside of Alan Partridge’s wardrobe but actually it’s rather tasteful. There’s also wood trim on the dashboard.
It’s clearly fake wood and reminds me of 70s Ford Cortinas. A pointless but inoffensive bit of Trekiness.
There are frequent but short bursts of electrification as the car seamlessly switches between internal combustion and electric power.
You can tell when you’re getting electric assistance because a green symbol illuminates in the instrument display.
The last Corolla estate that I tested was a 1.8-litre model and I managed to get some pretty impressive fuel consumption figures from it. The WLTP fuel consumption for the car customer or collected by the end of July.
To give you an idea of costs, a Transporter T28 SWB Startline will set you back £279 per month and a Caddy C20 Startline is £219 per month. is between 55.42mpg and 65.94mpg but I managed 67.8mpg.
What surprised me about that result is that quite a lot of driving was done on dual carriageways and motorways.
Hybrids tend to lose their advantage on motorways so I was surprised that the Corolla’s consumption didn’t fall off a cliff.
And I wasn’t driving that slowly, either. Although I didn’t cover quite so many miles in this Trek, it was looking likely that an average of mid-60s mpg was likely.
Practical and attractive, the new Corolla Trek is likely to be as reliable as most Toyotas. It’s economical and will be very easy to own.
Whether it is any more appealing than the standard estate will be very much down to your taste.
And lifestyle, of course.