The Next Toyota Corolla Will Look Something Like This

The Toyota Corolla – we don’t need to give you an introduction to it. As car bores are always at pains to point out, it’s the single best-selling automotive nameplate of all time, comfortably over 50 million of them and counting having been sold since the first one arrived in 1966.

It’s a bit of a big deal for Toyota, then (and the world, for that matter), when a new one arrives, and with the current twelfth-gen car now over eight years old, it’s surely ripe for replacement.

That’s what this mysterious concept, due to be revealed in full at the Tokyo Motor Show later this month, is looking ahead at. While these pictures don’t give away much, Toyota’s livestream outlining its exhibition at the show also gave us a glimpse at the rear, complete with ‘Corolla Concept’ badging.

This, then, is a preview of what to expect from an eventual thirteenth-gen Corolla, and one that doesn’t look like it’s too far from a production reality. Front and rear, we can see the big, width-spanning lightbars that Toyota and every other car company under the sun are so fond of at the moment.

There’s a big, steeply-raked panoramic windscreen along with a fairly low beltline that all looks like it’ll combine to make the concept a nice, airy place to sit. It’s even got reasonably sensibly-sized door mirrors and wheels, suggesting this is much closer to production than plenty of concepts.

The most noteworthy feature, though, is the little flap visible on the front left wing. Unless Toyota’s experimenting with some crazy fuel tank placement, then that’s a charging port, suggesting that the next Corolla has, or will at least be available with, an electrified powertrain beyond the ‘self-charging’ hybrid the current one comes as.

Full EV? PHEV? Range extender? Your guess is as good as ours at this point, as it is for when the next Corolla will eventually arrive. As we said, the current car’s getting on a bit, but with a new production line for the spicy GR version opening in the UK next year, it’s likely still got a bit of life in it yet.