The Corolla overtook the Beetle in 1997 and has never looked back
More than 54 million Corollas have been sold since 1966, making it the best-selling car nameplate of all time, a title it took from the Volkswagen Beetle in 1997. Its name is Latin for small crown, a nod to Toyota's bigger Crown sedan.
The first Corolla appeared at the 1966 Tokyo Motor Show and went on sale that November with a new 1,100 cc pushrod engine, built at the Takaoka plant that opened the same year. In Japan it was sold only through Toyota Corolla Store dealers, partnered for decades by a near twin called the Sprinter, sold through a different chain. Its first rival, the Nissan Sunny, arrived the same year; the Honda Civic and Mitsubishi Lancer came later.
Each generation grew a little. Performance versions called Levin and Trueno appeared in March 1972 with a twin-cam engine. The 1974 cars were rounder and heavier, and a sharp-edged restyle followed in 1979. By the mid-1980s most models had switched to front-wheel drive; the AE85 and AE86 were the last rear-wheel-drive Corollas. From 1985, rebadged Sprinters were even sold in the United States as the Chevrolet Nova. In 1990 Japanese sales reached 300,008, a domestic record that stood until the Prius beat it in 2010. A larger 1991 redesign moved the American Corolla from the subcompact to the compact class.
Its global reach explains the numbers. Corollas have been built in Brazil, Canada, China, Pakistan, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and Britain, among others, and previously in Australia, India, the Philippines and Venezuela. American production ran at the NUMMI plant in California until March 2010 and resumed in Mississippi in November 2011.
From 2000 Toyota split the ninth generation into two versions, one for Japan, Europe and Australasia and a wider one for other Asian and American markets. Southeast Asia and India knew a larger version as the Corolla Altis, and South Africa built an entry-level Corolla Quest until 2020. Toyota passed 50 million Corollas across twelve generations in 2021.
Source: Toyota Corolla
