This New Hampshire based rallying school demoed how a bit of skill and snow tires turns a regular Toyota Corolla with a four-speed automatic into a somewhat competent Rallying machine.
Sure, you’ve heard of “Wil it blend?” but have you heard of “Will it Rally?” where Team O’Neil Rally School gets a car they can get their hands on to whip it around a snowy course. Earlier this week (June 20, 2019) Team O’Neal took a regular 10th gen Toyota Corolla, you know the one your church choir director drives, and put the pokey little Corolla through its paces on a good-sized rallying course.
Check out the video for yourself below.
When I say stock, I literally mean stock. Except for a set of snow tires, because they’re not idiots, this Corolla hasn’t had any other modifications to it. Armed with some snow grippy tires, and, more importantly, an innate understanding of how cars handle on slippery surfaces thanks to thousands of hours of seat time, Team O’Neal manhandled this Corolla into a lovely video with some sweet slo-mo montages.
Since the Toyota Corolla is inherently built with several degrees of engineering safety baked in, it’s a very solid car handling wise. As such, according to the driver
The nice thing about a car like this is it’ll do whatever you tell it to do. You can trail brake, you can brake in turns, the hand brake works. You can do pendulum turns laying on the throttle with left foot braking all day to get around some of the higher speed corners.
As far as a FWD car with neutral handling is concerned, dare I say that the Corolla might be a great way to learn a bit of car handling on a budget.
As the video shows, a front LSD would work wonders for the Corolla’s handling on the loose stuff but other than that, what a surprise.
Someone in the comments posted the other four cars Team O’Neil has done and it’s just as surprising to learn that the Corolla, with a 2:36.87 lap time, is the fastest of the bunch so far.
- Mini Cooper 2:39.59
- Astro van 2:45.44
- Ford Explorer 2:43.47
- Toyota Corolla 2:36.87
So, the next time you see one of these regular ol’ Corollas on the road, there beats the heart of a rally machine under that 1.8L four-cylinder.
Would you rally a Corolla even if it was FWD and an automatic? Let me know in the comments below!
