Toyota Corolla

Just about any way you might track Toyota's U.S. success, it's likely the path would lead back to the automaker's long-running Corolla. Long before there was a Camry, there was the Corolla, and it forever changed the U.S. small-car market and U.S. shoppers' expectations.

Whether you're talking about Corollas from the '70s, '80s, or '90s, Toyota's compact had a reputation for lasting hundreds of thousands of miles with few, if any, serious repairs. In about ten generations over more than 40 years, the Toyota Corolla has gone from rear-wheel drive to front-wheel drive, and it's included sedans, coupes, fastbacks, hatchbacks, and wagons, but it's kept those core qualities the whole time.

Rear-wheel-drive Corollas actually continued in sport-coupe form until 1987, but by then sedans had the front-wheel-drive layout that maintain today. Over time, the 1.6-liter four has been expanded to a 1.8-liter, and the optional three-speed automatic got four speeds, but the Corolla hasn't grown that much larger.

The compact, front-wheel drive sedans that most people know as Corollas have competed with the likes of the Chevrolet Cobalt (and Cruze), Ford Focus, Honda Civic, Nissan Sentra, and Volkswagen Jetta.

With the Corolla's latest redesign, for 2009, safety was stepped up, but the Corolla didn't make the leap ahead in design or refinement that other compact sedans have made in their recent iterations. For 2010, ABS, stability control, front side and side curtain bags, and active head restraints were all made standard. And you can even get a navigation system, among modern conveniences, as an option on uplevel Corolla models. Base versions remained with no power windows, no power locks even, and embrace the cheapskate simplicity (although Toyota finally made power windows, locks, and mirrors standard in 2012).

For the first two years of its latest generation, the Corolla was sold in luxurious XLE trim, which included better interior appointments--albeit at a higher price. Also for those years, an XRS version of the Corolla offered the Camry's engine, a 2.4-liter, under the hood for much quicker performance. In more recent years the 'S' trim has offered some of that model's appearance, but at a more affordable price. For 2011 and 2012, the Corolla has seen only a few other minor feature changes.

Many other models over the years have also, formally or informally, been part of the Corolla family (the Matrix and Tercel are two), and the Corolla has been sold by GM dealerships through some years—mainly the late '80s through the '90s—as the Chevrolet Nova, Chevrolet Prizm, or Geo Prizm. This past decade, the Matrix and Pontiac Vibe are closely related to the Corolla.