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Toyota GT86 gets TRD treatment in UK

As dearly as we love the Toyota GT86 / Scion FR-S / Subaru BRZ franchise, we readily admit we wouldn't look sideways at a model with a bit more firepower. And while that's not quite on the table yet, Toyota has been busy amping up the visual firepower of its rear-drive coupe with a whole host of TRD parts. To this point, that's been a largely à la carte affair, but the automaker's UK outpost has just announced a special-edition model that allows our British friends to pick up the whole shooting match all in one go.
The Toyota GT86 TRD will only be available in black and white, and just 250 examples are to be built. As you can see from the excellent gallery above, the catalog of look-faster bits include a more aggressive front air dam, side skirts, rear bumper fascia, spoiler and unique 18-inch forged alloys. Additional flourishes include a TRD shift lever and branded radiator cap. The sole concession to actual performance? A "fast-response quad exhaust" that might only improve things audibly - 0-62 mph is apparently unchanged at 7.7 seconds, and the top end is still 140 mph for the manual transmission model. (The auto gets by with 8.4 seconds and 130 mph).
Pricing? Glad you asked. £31,495 for GT 86 TRD manual, £32,995 for the automatic - that's nearly $50,000 US for the tripedalist and just over for the automatic. (Those are heady prices, but bear in mind that UK MSRPs and taxes are generally significantly higher than their US counterparts). If the standard GT86 is more your speed, it still rings up at a more affordable £24,995 - roughly $39,500 - leaving plenty of budget for actual performance parts. No word yet on North American availability of a special TRD model, but we've got a call in...

2014 Toyota Corolla gets marginal IIHS small overlap crash test score [w/video]

Toyota may have performed some major surgery on the 2014 Corolla, but that hasn't helped the Japanese automaker overcome tough new crash test procedures. The Corolla, Toyota's bread-and-butter compact sedan, managed only a Marginal score on the new small overlap crash test, which was just added last year.
Despite the low score, the Corolla performed well in the moderate overlap front, side, rollover and rear testing, which was enough to score it a 2013 Top Safety Pick. In testing in August, six of the Corolla's competitors earned the Top Safety Pick + award, for good or acceptable scores across the board.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the Corolla's "Marginal" score was down to an "intruding structure," that could cause injuries to the lower left leg. There was also concern that in a collision, the driver's head would move after hitting the air bag, and collide with the A-pillar or dash.

Fuel cells will flop outside Japan, says VW

"It may fly within Japan, but not globally," VW's Shoji said.
It's long been battered into our beleaguered auto writer brains that the ultimate future source of motivation for tomorrow's cars and trucks is not gasoline, diesel, electricity, natural gas, propane or solar power - it's the hydrogen fuel cell. It's been the Next Big Thing since the start of Next Big Things.