A Week With: 2025 Toyota Corolla FX

Despite what you might believe, the small car market is alive and well. Small cars aren’t so small anymore, and automakers wanting to attract young buyers are loading them up with the content they desire. The 2025 Toyota Corolla FX shows the automaker has a great handle on the segment with this slightly upmarket version of a classic nameplate.

Toyota’s known for making great cars, and the latest iteration of its compact Corolla ensures it will continue its reign as the world’s best-selling car for some years to come. New for 2025 and a replacement for the Nightshade variant, the FX offers buyers a sporty-looking entry-level model with a bit of actual performance to it.

The Nightshade variants never hit me the same way as the FX does. Nightshade is black, black, and more black. However, our FX came in a dark gray dubbed “Underground” with black accents. If I were ever to buy a Corolla, this is the color. It gives this little car some heft … gravitas almost. The 18-inch satin-black alloy wheels are a great match with the spoiler, sport rocker trim and sport mesh black front grille. It’s an aggressive-looking car.

Inside matches the outside

Moving inside, the energetic feel continues with gray sport fabric seats with orange trim. Once upon a time, orange was the new black. Now it’s the new accent color signifying performance — or at least a performance look.

These seats are comfortable and supportive, and if you did manage to perform some higher-speed maneuvers, they feel like they’d keep you planted. The rest of the cabin offers a reasonable amount of space, including the back seats. Again, it’s a small car so you get “small” leg room, but for running around town, it’s just fine.

The leather-wrapped steering wheel is, well, round, which is almost unexpected these days in sport edition vehicles. So many are squared off at the bottom, or if you want to get spendy, you can get some with a yoke.

Overall, the feel of the cabin is … appropriate. The gray/orange combo is supplemented by the 10.25-inch touchscreen in the center of the dashboard. It’s not too small or too big, and it’s in the right spot. Not too high or low.

That said, in the simplest of vehicles in its portfolio … you need to push buttons to raise or lower the volume on the sound system. Whether that’s on the bottom of the touchscreen frame or using the steering wheel-mounted controls. It makes absolutely no sense and I found it to be a constant source of irritation.

Conversely, the climate controls couldn’t be better placed or easier to use. They’re right in the middle with easy to decipher icons and buttons. Such an odd combination.

Plenty of tech

Small car buyers are typically younger buyers looking at their first car or at least their first new car. And to that end, technology plays a big role in their choices. Toyota’s catered to those preferences both in terms of conveniences as well as advanced driver aids.

The multimedia setup is very good for a sub-$30K car. The 10.5-inch touchscreen provides access to all of the controls, whether you’re using Toyota’s native system, Apple CarPlay or Android Auto — the last two are wireless.

Also, ensuring whatever operating system you’re using, the personal device it’s tied to can be charged wireless is a nice bonus. The Corolla’s wireless charge pad is in an interesting spot — up under the dashboard. I didn’t much care for it at first, but as time went on, I came to like it more and more. It’s out of the way, your phone stays secure so it charges efficiently so my tune was changed.

The six-speaker audio system offers clear, crisp sound. Although it’s not going to be confused with a McIntosh, Bang & Olufsen, or any other premium setup, it’s an excellent system. Additionally, there are four USB ports in the car, ensuring everyone can get their charge on.

Peppy performer

It looks sporty, but is it sporty? Nah. But, the 2.0-liter, 16-valve 4-cylinder engine does put out a more-than-respectable 169 horsepower and 151 lb-ft of torque. Supras aren’t quaking in their boots, but if you need to get onto the freeway or scoot into a space around town, you can do it without any worry.

Additionally, you’ll be scooting right on by plenty of gas stations as well. It gets 31 mpg in the city, 39 mpg on the highway, for a nice average of 34 mpg combined. We fared a little better at 35, but I had a nice long run on the interstate with the cruise control set at just above the speed limit.

I did take it on my favorite twisty road near the house, and with just me in the car, it was good fun. You’d definitely put it in the “slow car fast” category of driving experience, but with the car in sport mode and the lower sport suspension, you can have big fun without worrying (much) about a big speeding ticket. I really enjoyed pushing it around.

Final call

The Corolla FX is a pleasant surprise. Not because you don’t expect much from it, but because you do and it delivers and then some. Not only is it easy on the bank account as well as easy on the eyes, it offered more utility than I expected. I was able to put three sets of golf clubs in the trunk of that car! There are some SUVs where that can be difficult without lowering a row of seats.

I’ve made some passing references to pricing, and the base price for the 2025 Toyota Corolla FX is $26,500. However, if you add a few items like blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alerts, the connected services trial and all the fees, our tester came in at $29,279. For a compact car with good looks and good performance, I’d say that’s a pretty good deal.