Toyota Corolla Altis

On the inside, the Toyota Corolla Altis gets a revamped dashboard design that follows many recent trends of automobile designing. However, it looks a bit plain and too subtle for a car of this class, which might be a turn off for those who were attracted by the exterior design of the Corolla Altis.

The four-spoke multi-functional steering wheel looks simple, but the instrument console behind it tries to look cool with blue highlight accents and large colored MID screen. The slanted design for the dashboard gets a large rectangular free-standing touchscreen infotainment system at the centre and a trapezoidal unit below it which houses trapezoidal AC vents and buttons for the automatic climate control. The transmission tunnel too looks minimalist and sleek with piano black accents making it look premium.

The new Toyota Corolla Altis has picked up from where its previous iteration left in terms of comfort and convenience, and continues to offer a comfortable experience at the rear with enhanced under-thigh support and room at the rear. The dual-tone black and beige upholstery enhance the airiness in the cabin even more. In the Hybrid variant, however, the entire cabin is finished in an all-black theme.

While all the previous iterations of Toyota Corolla lacked the youthful appeal and arresting visual attraction of its similarly specced competitors, the all-new Toyota Corolla Altis definitely strikes a second glance towards itself for the new age design it offers.

The frontal design of the Toyota Corolla Altis looks the sleekest among all of its entire generation models, with a crescent type sleek chrome garnish with the Toyota logo nestled in the middle. On the side edges of this chrome garnish sits wide L-shaped wide angular headlamps, which get LED projectors and blue highlights for the daytime running LEDs in them. The front bumper gets Camry-like large hexagonal air dam with horizontal slats and vertically aligned long C-shaped chrome surrounds for fog lamps.

From the sides, the Toyota Corolla Altis looks not so dramatic but looks subtle with round wheel arches above diamond-cut alloy wheels, chrome-finished door handles, and upper window lines and door-mounted rearview mirrors. There is a smooth line rising upwards from the front fender all the way to the upper edges of the tail lamps.

At the rear too, the Toyota Corolla looks elegant with big trapezoidal LED tail lamps with rounded outer edges and a horizontally extended V-shaped chrome accent running between them across the width of the boot lid.

The overall suspension setup of Toyota Corolla Altis, comprising of Macpherson struts at the front and double wishbone at the rear with stabilisers at both the ends, make up for a plush ride experience, something which gets only better with nicely cushioned and supportive seats at both the front as well as rear.

The new Toyota Corolla Altis is offered with a choice of two powertrains. Available in Standard and Elegance variants, the smaller 1.6-litre four-cylinder petrol motor produces 130 PS of power and 159 Nm of torque. There is a more technically advanced 1.8-litre four-cylinder petrol hybrid engine, which in sync with a motor-generator, makes 121 PS of power and 142 Nm of torque. Both the engines get paired to a CVT gearbox as standard.

The Toyota Corolla Altis gets a sufficient list of safety features, with prominent inclusions like the front, side, curtain and knee airbags, ABS with EBD, pre-collision system, automatic high beam, lane tracing assist, lane departure alert, dynamic radar cruise control, vehicle stability control, traction control, hill start assist, front and rear parking sensors and rear camera.

The new Toyota Corolla Altis continues to be as practical and reliable sedan as before, but this time around, it packs in an added dash of styling which feels both sporty and elegant at the same time.