Displaying Items By Tag: Rugged

Toyota has had something of a performance car revival over the past few years. It has released the Toyota 86 and Supra sports cars, and has even developed TRD versions of the Camry and Avalon. Things are even more exciting overseas with the wild, turbocharged, all-wheel-drive Yaris GR, which will reportedly spawn a fast Corolla for the United States. In the meantime, Toyota has spiced up its humble compact sedan with the 2021 Corolla Apex Edition.  It's a limited edition with an aggressive body kit and chassis upgrades. Unfortunately, while it looks cool, it's frustrating to drive and expensive for what you get.

So what exactly do you get with the Apex? On the outside, the Apex picks up a unique body kit incorporating a front spoiler, side skirts, and an aggressive rear diffuser, all in gloss black. The trunk spoiler is optional and costs $375. These parts all match the pearl black roof and mirrors, as well as the 18-inch alloy wheels. Toyota claims the wheels are designed to aid brake cooling and each one weighs 2.2-pounds less than the equivalent wheels for the regular SE and XSE Corollas. The Apex also features bronze accents and LED lighting, and a rear spoiler is available as an option. Inside, not much has changed, but each car gets unique upholstery, cloth for the SE and leatherette for the XSE, with bronze-colored contrast stitching. It's a mean, sporty-looking thing, and conjures up images of Scion's glory days.

Toyota introduced a new four-cylinder Supra for the 2021 model year and improved the six-cylinder model, too. You can read about what's new and how the two drive in our First Drive story, but here we're going to talk about how they sound. The video clip mashup is at the top where you can get a taste of what it's like to be on the bumper and inside the respective Supras one after another. 

The Supra 2.0 is the entry-level option now, and the 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder produces 255 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque. We know it's going to be cheaper, but we're not sure how much cheaper yet. One big step up from the 2.0 brings us to the 3.0, equipped with a 3.0-liter turbocharged inline-six engine. Toyota added power for 2021, bringing the output up to 382 horsepower and 368 pound-feet of torque — it previously made do with 335 horses and 365 pound-feet of torque. Both engines are pulled directly from BMW and are used in the Supra's platform mate, the BMW Z4.