Toyota Corolla Ascent Sport
PROOF THAT BUYERS AREN’T ALWAYS THE BEST JUDGES
“AS LONG as you’re not looking for much, it has plenty,” quipped Stuart West, and right there is Toyota’s ever-popular Corolla in a nutshell.
Built on a heritage spanning half a century and 11 generations, Toyota’s reputation for building indestructible Corollas exists for a reason. And the current Corolla is definitely one of the better ones. But how does ‘good for a Corolla’ fare in an era of innovation and all-round excellence? Better than we expected, as it turns out, though the 2016 Ascent Sport remains a deeply conservative car at its core.
Headlining the Toyota’s steady-as-she-goes approach is its 1.8-litre atmo engine, now 15 years old and surely overdue for a rethink. In reality, it tries hard and makes a more likeable noise than the Korean pair’s 2.0-litre.
Where the Toyota stumbles, just like the Honda, is with its CVT transmission. And mainly because it’s such a slug off the line. Pile four adults into an auto Corolla and it’s a moving roadblock until 40km/h, when the CVT finally finds a workable rev point and lifts its game.
Once rolling, the transmission is actually quite decisive, though it suffers the odd hiccup, and in Sport mode the CVT’S artificially stepped ratios prove counter-productive to hastening the Corolla’s gait. In Drive, the Toyota managed a mediocre 7.0sec from 80-120km/h, but in Sport, it couldn’t beat 7.3sec. Besides providing engine braking, there’s really no point.
The other contentious issue is the Corolla’s interior. Broad yet well-bolstered front seats put the Korean pews in the shade, but it’s that cliff-face of a dashboard that rubs us the wrong way. Crudely styled and featuring naff faux-stitched ‘seams’ in its polymer skin, the winner of the ‘most offensive’ award goes to the Ascent Sport’s vast plastic insert trim covered in graduated technical-print.
At least the Ascent Sport gets a substantial leather wheel rim and soft-touch plastics on the upper portion of its front doors, though the rear doors are hard plastic. And while its rear seat is mounted high, delivering a theatre-style view and legs-down packaging efficiency, the seat cushion is short and lacking in under-thigh support, and its backrest is flat and overly reclined. A reasonable 360-litre boot, though, with a full-size steel spare hidden beneath.
Opinions about the exterior styling are mixed – sharpish front, frumpy back end was the general consensus – but everyone was pleasantly surprised by the Corolla’s enthusiasm for corners. While we miss out on the multi-link IRS of the Auris-badged Euro version, the torsion-beam version delivers unexpected adjustability from its rear-end and is far more chuckable than you’d think.
Decent grip from its Bridgestone tyres helps, as does relatively accurate (if rather artificial and feeldeprived) steering, and the Corolla is definitely more dynamically up for it than the Megane. Its ride treads a similarly safe but satisfying path, being neither plush nor punishing, with respectable damping control and a middling level of tyre noise.
Which sums up the Corolla Ascent Sport perfectly. With little to offend, but also little to excite, it continues to tread a safe, middle ground, like the majority of its predecessors. But the real takeaway from the Corolla’s performance here is that Japan’s largest automaker definitely needs to try harder. NP/TOK