Whenever you talk about sport or politics or film stars or even cars, one tends to zero in on the two or three who keep on competing against each other making the competition even more fun and intriguing than the final outcome itself. In all these dogfights the one which has been played to a great extent continuously now for the past two decades has been the all-Japanese rivalry between the Honda Civic and the Toyota Corolla. These two have battled it out on their home turf, in the US (probably the largest and most important battlefield for this duo to perform on), in Asia and also in India. It is a fight that not one single car ever wins comprehensively, the duo exchanging places at the forefront while continuously sparring at each other and in the process delighting the millions of users who flock to buy one or both of them!
This is exactly the impression I got when Toyota Kirloskar gave us the exclusive use of a pre-production 10th generation Corolla Altis which was launched yesterday in New Delhi. It comes just about two years after Honda’s quantum Civic-leap and it promises to keep the executive segment slugfest simmering in all earnestness. Being Toyota the all new 10th generation Corolla is all evolution where the Civic was a barking mad revolution. However it depends on one’s point of view as whether evolution is the preferred taste of the hour or revolution is what is needed to light those latent desires. We’ll leave the Civic out of the picture now and concentrate totally on evolution and why it is good and great for the Corolla.
One cannot fault Toyota for their planning and their intense creed for detail and perfection. This is what makes the Corolla one of the most refined automobiles on the planet and at the price point it is pegged at, it makes for terrific value. Many a time I have myself mentioned the Corolla being a very boring car because it does things so perfectly well. Clinically efficient with nary a whimper or protest and that’s why it is the car of choice for the sensible and the staid. The 10th generation Corolla Altis is the modern face of the sensible and staid and you have to really look closely as to how it has advanced in generation.