2023 Toyota GR Corolla customer allocation plans in Australia revealed

While hot hatch fans queuing for the Toyota GR Corolla in New Zealand face a vote, dealers in Australia will decide which customers get a car.

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Toyota Australia says it will allow individual dealers to decide how to allocate the extremely limited number of Toyota GR Corolla hot hatches that roll into showrooms from next month – rather than an online ballot or a ‘first-come-first-served’ pos’ ordering system.

While hot hatch fans queuing for the GR Corolla in New Zealand face a vote – and their names will be drawn at random – Toyota dealers in Australia will decide which customers get a car.

Just 500 examples of the highly-anticipated Toyota GR Corolla are coming to Australia in the first 12 months on sale – and they are to be distributed across 232 dealers.

That equates to around two Toyota GR Corolla hot hatches per Toyota dealer in Australia, but the company says some showrooms may only get one example.

“Every dealer will get at least one car,” Toyota Australia sales and marketing boss Sean Hanley said.

This means some larger dealers may get two or possibly three cars to distribute among their customers.

Drive understands that some Toyota dealers hold more than two-dozen orders; the company says it hopes to ramp up the next production run next year.

Originally, Toyota Australia indicated that it would prioritize customers who already own a Toyota GR Yaris or Toyota GR Supra for the first allocation of cars.

However, Toyota Australia has since made it clear that it would like the first allocation of Toyota GR Corolla cars to be sold to loyal Toyota buyers – not resellers looking to make a quick buck.

“We asked our dealers to look at customer loyalty… across the Toyota brand. They don’t necessarily need to have previously owned a CA performance product,” said Mr Hanley.

“The responsibility for the customer experience and the customer management lies entirely with the merchant.”

Meanwhile, Toyota Australia says almost all orders for the Toyota GR Yaris – the pint-sized sibling of the Toyota GR Corolla – have been fulfilled and only a handful of outstanding orders remain.

“We have cleared the backlog of orders for GR Yaris or are very close to doing so,” Mr Hanley said. “That car will still be sold alongside (the) GR Corolla.”

The Toyota GR Corolla – and the Toyota GR Yaris with which it shares its high-performance mechanics – are powered by the world’s most powerful three-cylinder engine (220kW/370Nm) mated to a six-speed manual gearbox and four-wheel drive.

Joshua Dowling has been a motoring journalist for over 20 years, most of that time spent with The Sydney Morning Herald (as motoring editor and one of the early members of the Drive team) and News Corp Australia. He joined CarAdvice / Drive in 2018 and has been a World Car of the Year judge for over 10 years.