Shed of the Week: Toyota Corolla T-Sport
It's possible to blow £25k on a new Corolla these days. But why would you want to do that?
These days, operating on the spider principle, Shed no longer sleeps in the same room as Mrs Shed. Before the Challenger tank rumble of her snoring kicks in, Shed often hears two other noises coming from Mrs Shed's room. One is some sort of buzzing noise, the other is Mrs Shed shouting. As the frequency of the buzz increases, so does the shouting. Shed has always assumed this is her expressing her frustration at not being able to tune into Radio Luxembourg on her Grundig radio.
This nightly crescendo reminds Shed of a time when you really had to rev a car to get the best out of it. Today, even a 1.0 litre produces roughly the same amount of torque as a Massey-Ferguson, and making good progress is in no way conditional on venturing into the dark zone above 3000rpm.
But it wasn't like that back in 2004, when this week's Shed was built. Depending on how interested you are in cars, the word Corolla will either conjure up a vision of perfect tedium or, more excitingly, of Carlos Sainz hurling his crash helmet through the back window of his MoviStar WRC Corolla that had caught fire half a kilometer short of the winning line in Margam Park, robbing him of the 1998 WRC title.
The disconnect between Toyota's competition and showroom Corollas was never greater than it was back then. Sainz's 4WD rally weapon had 300bhp and 500Nm, making it nearly three times pokier than the most powerful Corolla you could buy in Britain at the time, the 109bhp 1.6. If that was too thrilling, you could calm things way the hell down by opting for an 85bhp 1.3 or a 71bhp 2.0 diesel.
That gap between road and race was closed somewhat when the new shape ninth-gen Corolla - or the T-Sport you see here, anyway - arrived in the early 2000s. The T's 1.8-litre 16-valve VVTi engine was great at pushing the 860kg Lotus Elise along, but it made heavier weather of the 1210kg Corolla.
On paper, the low-eight second 0-60 time and 140mph top speed stacked up. Unfortunately, nobody was driving on paper. The motor span up to 8000rpm, which was just as well because the peak power of 189hp didn't arrive until a bonkers 7800rpm. Waiting for the tacho needle to crawl round there demanded a degree of patience that, without wishing to stereotype, was often out of kilter with the personality of your typical hot hatch driver.
In 2005, Toyota had a brainwave. They could fill in the T-Sport's low- and midrange power void and dodge tougher Euro4 emissions regs at the same time by adding a supercharger. Thus was born the T-Sport Compressor. The killing two birds with one stone idea was good, the result less so. Somehow the Compressor's engine turned out to be even peakier than the T-Sport's, its 215bhp peak power figure coming at a dog-whistle 8200rpm, a full 4000rpm after the blower had uncorked peak torque. Odd.
So, although potential T-Sport buyers of today don't get the Compressor's 15mm lower (and stiffer) springs, or its blower whine, nor do they get its misprint dyno graph. They also benefit from considerably lower prices and, given that there are fewer than 140 Compressors left on UK roads, much greater availability.
This particular T-Sport doesn't seem to have had much in the way of tender loving care lavished on it. It passed the MOT last July with advisories on cut and worn front tyres, imbalanced front brakes and a cracked front number plate. Shed may be wrong, as ever, but there are no obvious signs from the pics that any of those areas have been addressed, so the next owner might need to spend a bit of cash. Not that much, thankfully, as it's only a lickle car with 16in wheels.
A full set of 195/55 Toyo Proxes will be £280 or so fitted, plus let's say £150 for some brake work. Add that to the £999 asking price and you're creeping up towards the right sort of money for a T-Sport of this age and mileage. You'll still have some cosmetic work to do, clearly, but then again any other T-Sport you buy at the 'correct' money is also likely to need money spending on it.
In the end it might come down to your interest in the colour, which Shed thinks is dark blue mica pearl and which should respond very nicely to a machine polish, and in keeping another T-Sport on the road. Now that we're in the era of the £25k Corolla, a price that sounds wrong on many levels - and that's before a performance version comes out - a £1k Corolla combining performance (ish) and practicality doesn't sound so bad.
Sightly put off by the reviews say they need some modifications to make them handle, that the gearbox action is poor (which is a shame when you have to work it to get to the power), and that they're surprisingly thirsty.
You couldn’t drive it in the power zone in anything but 1st and 2nd within the U.K. speed limits. As such it felt really really slow
However when in "the zone" it really did haul. A curious car that is extremely rare, but a bit of a Q car!
I think there’s an error in the article. The shape above never came in 1300cc. That was the previous shape and it was ok-ish I suppose. The shape above started at 1.4 (95bhp) and speaking as a Toyota fan, it was THE MOST BORING CAR we ever owned. Performance was slow at best, handling was like a fat person on roller skates and ride was rubbish.
My wife’s car immediately before that one was a Focus Zetec Mk1 which was just better in every way apart from reliability. During the same time we also had a Yaris Mk1 and Mk2 which were far more fun to drive. To give it its due it never broke down on us and if you wanted cheap reliable motoring you could do worse but the Civic of the same generation kicks its arse in every way.
I took to driving it exclusively above 6200 when the VVTI gubbins kicked in and it was surprisingly ok.
First is next to reverse so there's an irritating buzzer to let you know you're about to go backwards - not to be confused with reversing sensors!
If it's like the Celica, it'll also need a squillion revs not to stall at launch.
Fondish memories, but only because it was a company car. I wouldn't have wanted to own it.
I think there’s an error in the article. The shape above never came in 1300cc. That was the previous shape and it was ok-ish I suppose. The shape above started at 1.4 (95bhp) and speaking as a Toyota fan, it was THE MOST BORING CAR we ever owned. Performance was slow at best, handling was like a fat person on roller skates and ride was rubbish.
My wife’s car immediately before that one was a Focus Zetec Mk1 which was just better in every way apart from reliability. During the same time we also had a Yaris Mk1 and Mk2 which were far more fun to drive. To give it its due it never broke down on us and if you wanted cheap reliable motoring you could do worse but the Civic of the same generation kicks its arse in every way.
I had the shape before this one as my first car, the 1.3 engine too. I think the 1.3 litre had 99hp and the car weighed about 1 ton so it did move quite nicely. No tachometer so you had to find the rev limit for each gear yourself 
I had the shape before this one as my first car, the 1.3 engine too. I think the 1.3 litre had 99hp and the car weighed about 1 ton so it did move quite nicely. No tachometer so you had to find the rev limit for each gear yourself I think there’s an error in the article. The shape above never came in 1300cc. That was the previous shape and it was ok-ish I suppose. The shape above started at 1.4 (95bhp) and speaking as a Toyota fan, it was THE MOST BORING CAR we ever owned. Performance was slow at best, handling was like a fat person on roller skates and ride was rubbish.
My wife’s car immediately before that one was a Focus Zetec Mk1 which was just better in every way apart from reliability. During the same time we also had a Yaris Mk1 and Mk2 which were far more fun to drive. To give it its due it never broke down on us and if you wanted cheap reliable motoring you could do worse but the Civic of the same generation kicks its arse in every way.
I had the shape before this one as my first car, the 1.3 engine too. I think the 1.3 litre had 99hp and the car weighed about 1 ton so it did move quite nicely. No tachometer so you had to find the rev limit for each gear yourself I had the shape before this one as my first car, the 1.3 engine too. I think the 1.3 litre had 99hp and the car weighed about 1 ton so it did move quite nicely. No tachometer so you had to find the rev limit for each gear yourself I think there’s an error in the article. The shape above never came in 1300cc. That was the previous shape and it was ok-ish I suppose. The shape above started at 1.4 (95bhp) and speaking as a Toyota fan, it was THE MOST BORING CAR we ever owned. Performance was slow at best, handling was like a fat person on roller skates and ride was rubbish.
My wife’s car immediately before that one was a Focus Zetec Mk1 which was just better in every way apart from reliability. During the same time we also had a Yaris Mk1 and Mk2 which were far more fun to drive. To give it its due it never broke down on us and if you wanted cheap reliable motoring you could do worse but the Civic of the same generation kicks its arse in every way.
I had the shape before this one as my first car, the 1.3 engine too. I think the 1.3 litre had 99hp and the car weighed about 1 ton so it did move quite nicely. No tachometer so you had to find the rev limit for each gear yourself EDIT: looks like other people fell into the same Type-R comparison
This is a very nice, competent car aimed at people who want a hatchback that they can have some fun with once in a while, but what they really put
emphasis on is every-day driving.
I guess I could sum it up that Type-R is sporty but also every-day practical the T-Sport is every-day practical but also sporty.
Step out of a 2005 civic type R and jump into one of these and within half a mile You will know what a complete dud this was.
At shed money the only decent thing to do will be buy it, take the engine out and put it out of its misery ( put the engine in an Mr2 or Elise and crush the rest of it).
The odd thing is a normal Corolla of the same eg eg a 1600cc 5 door is actually a nice enough thing to drive, quite pleasant I for a boring hatch.
But This attempt at a hot hatch was laughably bad, a frumpy looking wobbly hatchback with soft suspension, pesky power delivery felt like nothing until 6200 revs then a decent go but the gear ratios were all wrong to try and exploit this narrow power band (and 5th and 6th gears were almost the same) front seats were not much different to standard model seats with hardly any lateral support, and the sat nav display was like something from a 1980’s ZX spectrum!
The only possible reason to buy this is to rescue the engine and put it somewhere more deserving.
I think there’s an error in the article. The shape above never came in 1300cc. That was the previous shape and it was ok-ish I suppose. The shape above started at 1.4 (95bhp) and speaking as a Toyota fan, it was THE MOST BORING CAR we ever owned. Performance was slow at best, handling was like a fat person on roller skates and ride was rubbish.
My wife’s car immediately before that one was a Focus Zetec Mk1 which was just better in every way apart from reliability. During the same time we also had a Yaris Mk1 and Mk2 which were far more fun to drive. To give it its due it never broke down on us and if you wanted cheap reliable motoring you could do worse but the Civic of the same generation kicks its arse in every way.
I also had an 02 Civic which we owned from new, probably the best car we've ever owned, (did 120k and only needed 1 ABS sensor) and felt like a rocketship in comparison to the Corolla, but it also felt like a car from the class below in terms of the interior, noise dampening, seat quality and overall solidity - close the door on the Civic and you got a tinny rattle, close the door on the Corolla and it was a solid thud. The Corolla wore the miles hugely better than the Civic - it still looked like new at 100k, inside and out, and I never cleaned it until I sold it - hoover up all the crap and underneath was a pristine car that could have done 10k and not 100k.
Evaluating the smaller engine vehicles like this in terms of fun or performance is a pointless exercise - they were designed to work day-in day-out as reliable low maintenance and low running cost transport, and for this the Civic and Corolla of this gen are the best vehicles in their class.
In terms of this Corolla - not sure. I also had a Celica which I assume shares the basic engine without the supercharger, and never really gelled with it in terms of driving it fast. No power unless you redline it which became tiring and in general I just couldn't be bothered a lot of the time. I don't think I'd want another powerful car that had that same lack of anything low down. I also wouldn't pick a Corolla as a base for a fast car as it just wasn't designed for it. Q-car stuff might be fun the first few times, I imagine the novelty wears off pretty quick and you're left wishing you'd bought a fast(ish) car that was intended as a fast car.
I think there’s an error in the article. The shape above never came in 1300cc. That was the previous shape and it was ok-ish I suppose. The shape above started at 1.4 (95bhp) and speaking as a Toyota fan, it was THE MOST BORING CAR we ever owned. Performance was slow at best, handling was like a fat person on roller skates and ride was rubbish.
My wife’s car immediately before that one was a Focus Zetec Mk1 which was just better in every way apart from reliability. During the same time we also had a Yaris Mk1 and Mk2 which were far more fun to drive. To give it its due it never broke down on us and if you wanted cheap reliable motoring you could do worse but the Civic of the same generation kicks its arse in every way.
I had the shape before this one as my first car, the 1.3 engine too. I think the 1.3 litre had 99hp and the car weighed about 1 ton so it did move quite nicely. No tachometer so you had to find the rev limit for each gear yourself The nice thing about the 4E-FE in my Corolla is that the lambda sensor sits before the catalytic converter, and that's it. There's nothing after it. So, if I wanted to, I could stick a straight through on it and claim back some of the lost horsepower.
TTE (Toyota Team Europe, forerunner to TRD) made metal head gaskets which increased the compression on the 4E-FE by some degree. Rarer than rocking horse s
t now but apparently there are a few companies out there who make similar gaskets. It's something I'm going to look in to next year, along with skimming the head, port polishing and aluminium pulleys just to squeeze a bit of power out of it, along with a conversion to a turbo. They made a 4E-FTE (turbo version of the 4E-FE) but again, they're rare and hard to find now. Plus it's more involved just throwing a turbo on this engine as valve springs for a start need to be changed to thicker versions, as apparently the valve springs in the 4E-FE are like mickey mouse springs.I know far too much about a car no one really cares about!
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