Toyota marks 60 years of best-selling car ever

Guess how many Toyota Corollas have been sold since 1966? Wrong

By PH Staff / Tuesday, 25 August 2026 / Loading comments

You know who sells a lot of cars? Toyota. It is the postmaster of mass production. The yardstick by which all others are measured. Last year, it sold more than 11 million cars. Which was more than Ford and General Motors combined. Unsurprisingly, this prodigiousness, alongside the fact that Toyota has been in business for nearly 90 years, means that some of its individual models have also achieved dizzying sales totals. The Camry, for example, a car so boring that PH cannot mentally picture it, has shifted 22 million units since 1982. That’s more than the VW Beetle.

But the real biscuit-taker, as we all know, is the Corolla. Toyota’s archetypal car: well-made, dependable, practical, forgettable - and colossally popular. If you add the amount of Ford Fiestas sold to the Beetle total, you still do not arrive at the number of Corollas that have found customers. Since 1966, when it was launched in Japan as the E10, twelve generations of deliberately modest compact cars have accumulated 57 million in global sales. The next most numerous model on the best-selling list is the Ford F-Series, which has been in production for nearly 20 years longer. And that’s a long way behind.

Much of this success, it must be said, is owed to the car’s enduring popularity in North America, where anonymous sedans are two a penny. But the model has also enjoyed something of a renaissance in Europe in recent years, helped no end by the current E210, which, in a remarkable break from tradition, appeared to have been designed by someone who liked cars rather than, say, chest freezers.

Hence the introduction of a 60th Anniversary Corolla is marginally more pertinent than it otherwise would be, helped along in no small part by the fact that we’re talking about a special edition version of a British-built hatchback - TMUK being one of 12 locations globally to produce the model. You’ll know the model courtesy of its exclusive Boreal Blue metallic paint with contrasting Eclipse Black roof and pillars, alongside 10-spoke 17-inch wheels and a smattering of what Toyota likes to call ‘silver garnish’ on the bumper and sills.

It looks rather nice, though its mildly sporty look is slightly undone by the fact that it can only be ordered as a 140hp 1.8-litre hybrid. Which brings us to the other notable fact we all know about the Corolla (and the reason, frankly, for thinking about it): the presence in the lineup of a GR version - one also made in the UK, but still not sold here. One might think the 60th anniversary of the model, a significant milestone in anyone’s book, would be the perfect time for an announcement pertaining to this oversight. But so far, radio silence.

Perhaps seeking the ultimate historical resonance, Toyota is waiting till October, so that its UK launch would chime with the Corolla’s original unveiling at the Tokyo Motor Show. After all, you won’t be able to order a 60th Anniversary variant till then - what better way to double down on the birthday celebrations? Or perhaps the firm is waiting to see how customers respond to the special edition before committing to the introduction of a high-priced hot hatch. In which case, everyone order two immediately…