First look: Corolla sedan’s new face

HERE is the facelifted 2010 Corolla sedan Toyota will release in Australia in September.

Revealed for the first time ahead of its European release in May, the midlife makeover of the 10th generation Corolla four-door has surfaced in official high-resolution images.

Apart from bringing the three-box version of the world’s top-selling small car in line with the five-door hatch derivative released here in November, the revised Corolla sedan will – as reported exclusively by GoAuto two weeks ago – mark the introduction of the model’s first 2.0-litre engine, at least in flagship Ultima form.

While garden-variety variants of the Corolla sedan will, like the hatch, remain powered by Toyota’s 100kW 2ZR-FE 1.8-litre four-cylinder petrol engine, the European version will be headlined by the standard fitment of Toyota Optimal Drive technologies, including a fuel-saving idle-stop system.

As the images show, the Corolla sedan continues to come with a different front-end sheetmetal, bumper and headlight design to the hatch, but the booted Corolla will also feature what Toyota claims will be a more sophisticated cabin with enhanced perceived interior quality.

Internal changes extend to a new flat-bottomed multifunction steering wheel – leather-wrapped in upstream models – plus classier trim materials for the dashboard, door inners and, on high-series variants, centre console and window switch surrounds, and new white-faced instrument dials.

In Europe, where the Corolla was the most popular C-segment model with 62,000 examples sold, the three-year-old 150-series sedan will gain power retractable door mirrors with integrated turn indicators, new 16-inch alloy wheels, a remote boot-open key function and upgraded trim fabrics with the choice of two two-tone interior colour schemes: dark and light grey. Alcantara seat upholstery will be available for the first time in the Corolla, too.

On the technology front, the Corolla sedan will match its hatch sibling by introducing a four or six-speaker AM/FM/CD audio system with Bluetooth phone connectivity and USB and auxiliary-in sockets.

Top-flight versions of the Euro Corolla sedan will also get Toyota’s new Gentex rear-view mirror, which incorporates a 3.3-inch monitor that displays images from a reversing camera, includes static parking guidelines and includes an anti-glare function.

The Euro 5 emissions-compliant European engine line-up will comprise 1.3-litre Dual VVT-i and 1.6-litre Valvematic petrol engines, plus 1.4 and 2.0-litre D-4D diesel engines.