Ageless Corolla

Motoring editor ALASTAIR SLOANE casts an eye over the new versions of the ever-popular Toyota Corolla.

Lots of things litter the desolate main road linking the Red Sea to the Dead Sea in Jordan - bits of vehicles, an old Toyota Corolla or two, strips of tyres, dead animals, scattered fruit, and perhaps a crate of something that has fallen off the back of a truck.

The animals wander on to the road during the night and mostly get hit by tired long-haul truck drivers, straddling and using the white line as a guide.

Bus drivers during the day use the white line as a compass. Almost everyone uses the white line for that purpose. That's the way it is. Oncoming drivers unfamiliar with the order of things move over into the sand.

Dead donkeys and camels are towed off the road, mostly by four-wheel-drive Toyota Hiluxes. The shifting sands of the desert bury most of the other junk. The cycle goes on.

The sands have always buried things. The biblical spot - off the same main road - where Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt is now sand.

And the road leading to this signposted area in Jordan is mostly populated by Toyota Hiluxes, the camel-recovery vehicles.

The ubiquitous Hilux is found on roads leading to other historical sites, too. The Taleban used them when they went to blow up the statues of Buddha in central Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden tooled around in one before he switched to a Land Cruiser.

Bob Field, the chairman of Toyota New Zealand, made it clear the other day that while Toyota might sell vehicles in every corner of the Earth, it doesn't specifically supply vehicles to the Taleban.

This response was prompted by a mass-circulation e-mail picture of a bearded Afghani standing by what's left of a Toyota Hilux, crumpled and buried under rubble from a bombed building. The word bubble above him says, "Bugger".

Field and his executives are preparing for the launch of another mass-circulation vehicle - the all-new, ninth-generation Corolla.

It "is the most significant advancement since the introduction of the first front-wheel-drive model in 1984," Field says.

That's confirmed by long-time Toyota consultant and former Formula One driver Chris Amon, who tuned the ride/handling mix of Toyotas for New Zealand conditions over the years.

"The new model is a great driver's car. It drives and handles very well. Quite frankly, if we had tuned the new Corolla here nothing much would have changed."

The 12-model 2002 Corolla comes in three body styles - hatch, sedan and wagon and is designated GL, GLX and TS - and was designed in France to compete with the best of the small/medium segment in Europe.

It has more interior space than the outgoing model, has a higher roofline and sits on a longer wheelbase. All models are powered by a 1.8-litre variable-valve engine producing 100kW at 6000 rpm and 171Nm of torque at 4200 rpm, and mated to either a five-speed manual or four-speed automatic transmission.

The new Corolla is no longer just a competent, reliable, well-built but largely anonymous Japanese car.

Its interior design, seats included, is vastly improved, echoing in shape, materials and substance the best of the luxury makers. The radio/CD player is where it should be in all cars - high on the centre console just below the dash.

The rack and pinion steering is sharp, handling is predictably accurate, ride is soft but settled.

The sportier TS - Toyota Sport, a worldwide brand created to give the company a youthful, competitive image - is a lot of fun and can be coaxed into believing it is a genuine hot hatch.

The Corolla ranges in price from $29,990 for the base model hatch to $37,150 for the automatic TS hatch. The prices are higher than some observers expected.

But Toyota counters that the new Corolla is not just another in a long line - it's a breakthrough model that is sophisticated, advanced and as important in a global sense as the first front-wheel-drive Corolla.

A spice dealer down the road from the resting place of Lot's wife drove a 1984 Corolla. "It is good, yes? The best car in the world?"

Toyota thinks so. It has sold more than 29 million since 1966 - 170,000 of them in New Zealand.

It expects the new Corolla to have even more influence.