I've seen a handful of the new Corollas now on the road in Germany and France, and there's one in the employee car park. I like it with the hybrid drivetrain, but the naturally aspirated one would feel pretty gutless to me. I mean, really, rev to nearly 5k to get peak torque ? Where's the city responsiveness in that ? Hybrid, please !
The benefit of the smaller displacement turboengines is most notably felt in normal urban driving, where revs and loads are pretty low so you're not needing to "feed" 6 cylinders. I remember my E90 325i was a pig around town, consuming 10 l/100km. At autoroute speeds (130+) the consumption was much more reasonable and in-line with turbocharged 4s.
I guess on this forum I'm in the unique position to have experienced a wider of range of speeds; for sure when you dip into the throttle above +/- 2750 r/min the turbocharged engine starts to guzzle. Hence why I slowed down in my Peugeot. But would I give it up for a NA 6-cyl ? No. The extra consumption all the other times off the autobahn or autoroute isn't worth it.
