Although this year's Monterey Car Week was full of gorgeous or incredible novelties – from $30 million Rolls-Royce Droptails to the $300k 800+ hp Ford Mustang GTD, and many more, some people still only have (CGI) eyes for the Japanese automaker Toyota.
The company didn't even bless Monterey with anything of particular significance – as they already took August by storm initially by introducing the 2024 Land Cruiser (Prado or Land Cruiser 250 in certain regions). But its tidal wave of ongoing novelties seems too enticing to set aside – especially in the imaginative realm of digital car content creators.
Some of them, for example, have quickly heard of the recent rumor that Toyota is considering a Corolla Cross-based pickup truck to try and give the best-selling Ford Maverick and ritzy Hyundai Santa Cruz some headaches across the North American region. And, naturally, they imagined the potential unibody compact pickup truck.
On the other hand, others are first preoccupied with the potential facelift of the Toyota Corolla Cross – a compact crossover SUV that has been around since 2020 on TNGA-C underpinnings shared with the rest of the E210-series Corolla family. Also sold as a hybrid, complete with a 197-hp powertrain that's both powerful and frugal, the Corolla Cross Hybrid even replaced the C-HR nameplate in the automaker's US roster.
A few, though, probably think that maybe Toyota should first address adequately the C-HR's departure with a refreshed Corolla Cross Hybrid that's more daring than the current model. And the good folks behind the RMD CAR channel on YouTube have the latest scoops coordinated with their unofficial CGI depictions of new models - hence this 2025 Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid.
However, I have to say that maybe they should also come clean and reveal that some of their hypothetical digital projects are made with more than a bit of help from AI tools – as this and a previous presentation of the next-gen 2025 Corolla are too futuristic and maybe only a little biased towards the 'deep fake' side of things.
Anyway, it's an unofficial project, so they can have it any way they see fit. And on this occasion, they went for an outrageous presentation where the hypothetical 2025 Corolla Cross Hybrid facelift has nothing to do with the regular Corolla Cross. In fact, anyone would be hard-pressed to find any connection with the current roster of Toyota vehicles.
Oh, well, do take all this with a massive grain of salt, of course – as nothing is official from Toyota just yet. However, if you want our two cents on the matter, we do not expect such bold (or outrageous) moves from the Japanese automaker, even if it has started to break the norm with some of its most beloved models, such as the all-new 2024 Land Cruiser.
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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