A family car must offer interior roominess, and the Corolla provides
plenty. With comfortable bucket seats in front and a three-place bench
seat in the rear, Corolla is a congenial car for families with young children.
Even your sprouting basketball stars will find enough head room in the
rear.
Interior styling is conservative and functional, yet designed for ergonomic
or operating efficiency. The climate controls and radio/tape functions
are easily read at a glance and well within reach of the driver for use.
The instrument package isn't cluttered up with what, in this purposeful
mount, would be some unnecessary gauges, so the principal read-outs of
a speedometer and tachometer (DX only) are quickly scanned for essential
information.
To our mild surprise, the Corolla's seating comfort was better than
expected. The front buckets offer adequate support at the thighs and in
the lumbar region for long-distance comfort, as we discovered during a
weekend run from Detroit to Chicago and back. Corolla shows that it's thinking
about safety in smaller ways, too, by offering standard child-protector
rear door locks on all models as well as an optional integrated rear child
restraint seat. And all Corollas come with full interior carpeting, dual
cupholders, remote hood and trunk releases, trip odometer, coinholder and
a center console box big enough to corral those give-aways from the fast-food
restaurants.
A small car has a harder time managing ride quality than a larger car,
in part because the wheelbase is comparatively short. Annoyingly, a shorter-wheelbase
car may do a rocking-horse thing over road imperfections that a larger
car would just absorb.
Corolla's 97-inch wheelbase is long enough, and its suspension so well-tuned,
that it offers the ride quality of a much larger, more expensive automobile,
which can be said for the Geo Prizm as well. The ride quality is impressively
comfortable without descending into floaty or uncontrolled motions. Steering
is crisp and linear, adding to confidence behind the wheel.
This is a relatively quiet car, too, as we found during the long road
trip. The bonus of a quieter car is reduced fatigue for the driver and
an atmosphere obviously more conducive to conversation.
Some small cars can be a chore to drive if they're more work than fun.
Not so here. Although the Corolla and Prizm aren't in the same horsepower
league as the Neons, they're surprisingly agile and enthusiastic performers,
even with an automatic transmission. The standard five-speed manual would
infuse it with more fun for some, maybe, but every person in a given household
may not want to drive a stick. This Corolla is designed to provide good
performance to all family members across multi-mission roles, and it succeeds.