Repair-It

In other words, the 2014 Toyota Corolla is a homerun for its target market. It's an autonomous car you have to drive yourself -- the thing almost vanishes from consciousness as soon as you start it, allowing people who really don't like driving to get it over with as unobtrusively as possible.

The Toyota Corolla is usually about as bland as it gets. I'm sure the most popular color is triple beige. But, as much as I hate to say it, this new front end makes it more than just another forgettable Toyota -- at least for a regular person. To the enthusiast, there still isn't much to be excited about.

This really isn't a performance car, though -- not that you could ever mistake it for one. The front end is light and steering somewhat uncertain under moderate acceleration; the suspension is probably the single oldest and cheapest-feeling part of the car, transmitting bumps and road imperfections with only moderate damping.

Fine. Whatever. The best way to enjoy the Corolla is cruise-controlling along at legal (and responsible, taking into account prevailing traffic and weather conditions) speeds, “eco” mode engaged for maximum fuel economy, the mind free to devote as much of its capacity to imaging its somewhere other than the morning commute.

Enthusiasts tend to forget that this is precisely what many car buyers want, and why autonomous cars are going to be huge.

Another efficiency is the new drivetrain. While the LE Plus test car we had out here in California didn't get the Valvematic treatment that increases efficiency of the intake cam, it does have VVT-i. Combined with a CVT transmission, it's good for an EPA rating of 29 city/38 highway/32 combined. The LE Eco trim levels have Valvematic and returns 30/42/35. For the LE Eco models that have 16-inch wheels like the test car back in Detroit, they get a rating of 30/40/34.

Flooring it with the Racelogic box suction-cupped to the windshield, I got a 0-60 mph time of 9.9 seconds, which I think you could probably do on a skateboard. It is dog slow. Maybe even cat slow. And when you stomp on the throttle and really mean it, or even when the revs are only at 2,000 rpm or higher, the engine is loud and thrashy, a little like it is trying desperately to tear itself apart because it just can't stand this crud anymore. So overall, there's not much fun coming from under the hood.

Which is fine, really. The Corolla is a transport pod for people who don't want to think very much about cars. These people make up a huge segment of the market. Toyota sold 302,180 Corollas in the U.S. last year, which included some of these new models. That's more than Ford Focus, Ford Fusion and Ford Fiesta; twice as much as Volkswagen Jetta, Nissan Sentra and Kia Optima; three times as much as the Mazda 3 and almost as much as Honda Civic, Honda Accord and Nissan Altima. So the thing sells, man.

Despite Toyota's more-than-annoying insistence that every major youth movement of the past five decades has somehow involved a Corolla, this latest one doesn't launch any spontaneous dance-offs. Here's another idea: When the latest Yaris came out, a cheeky, clever ad campaign playing upon Toyota's blasé appliance status by proclaiming: “It's a Car!”