The Japanese automaker is hard at work trying to recoup the distance between its American sales and General Motors' deliveries. As such, no one wonders what's up with the tidal wave of new model introductions, refreshes, and special editions, right?
Since the beginning of the year, Toyota introduced the Prius 'Hybrid Reborn,' including in 220-hp Prime plug-in hybrid form, swapped the base C-HR with the new Corolla Cross Hybrid, brought the 2024 Grand Highlander three-row CUV as a North American exclusive alongside the ritzier Lexus TX, and also announced a slew of Nightshade plus GR special editions.
Oh, and let us not forget about the absolute superstars – the 2024 Toyota Tacoma N400 mid-size pickup truck and the reborn 2024 Land Cruiser, which returns to America in early 2024 after a short but stingy hiatus. Now, the new base of both passenger car and crossover SUV operations is only the award-winning, record-holding Corolla nameplate.
As such, you can have it as a sedan from $21,900 for the 2024 model year or as a $23,600 CUV if you choose the 2023 Corolla Cross – making the compact crossover SUV quite a great deal cheaper than the $28,275 RAV4 best-seller. Launched in production during the summer of 2020, the Toyota Corolla Cross represents an interesting alternative to the RAV4, which is probably going to grow closer to the $35k Venza (offered only as a hybrid with five seats) and $36,620 Highlander mid-size CUVs when it's time to switch generations.
However, some people may be more interested in what the Corolla Cross offers. Well, in the real world, the 2024 Corolla Cross Hybrid also joined the dark side and adopted the Nightshade trim level special edition alongside many of its Corolla and CUV peers. But things are a tad quirkier in the imaginative realm of digital car content creators. As such, the good folks over at the Q Cars and AutomagzTV channels on YouTube aim to present their visions for one of the most affordable Toyotas out there – complete with full redesigns even if the compact CUV only needs a mid-cycle refresh around that time.
First, the resident pixel master at Q Cars went for a nice, OEM-like morphing that's not too far from the original model – only with updated front and rear fascia treatments and a more muscular side profile appearance. As always, there's also a second design project that tries to push the styling further into the future – but, as always, we need to take all these renderings with a grain of salt because nothing is official just yet.
Secondly, the peeps over at AutomagzTV take things to the conceptual extreme with help from the computing and designing power of AI. The result is undoubtedly mesmerizing, but it's even more far-fetched to believe that Toyota would ever jump on board with such creations. Instead, this hypothetical Corolla Cross looks ready for a Hollywood movie set in the not-too-distant future.
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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