Toyota has taken the wraps off its new Corolla hatch, revealing a sleek, sporty new look for the 11th generation of the world’s best-selling car.

The latest Corolla goes on sale in Japan today, with the talented new model available in New Zealand later in the year.

Corolla has been a mainstay of the Japanese car industry since 1966, selling over 39 million units worldwide. In New Zealand, Corolla has been the number one passenger car for the past four years, and the number one vehicle in its segment for 27 years.

The latest model is the outcome of extensive research and evaluation in Europe. Toyota’s focus on European buying preferences has delivered edgier styling and a lower centre of gravity to further improve its dynamic performance.

The Euro-inspired exterior design combines smooth-flowing surfaces with sweeping character lines to provide the sense of agility expected in the small hatch segment.

We laid down the Prius Challenge to both local mayors.
Who would be the greenest? Which one of them would be able to pull off the best Eco Score, saving both fuel and money on their trip around our Prius Challenge course?

We wanted to get the message out to as many people as possible about the benefits to breaking your old driving habits. The Prius Challenge is the perfect platform for this as it encourages you to be competitive on the one hand, and very mindful of your driving style and energy consumption on the other. The all new 2012 Toyota Prius C delivers an amazing amount of usable information to the driver as you are driving, so you can monitor your driving, fuel consumption and energy use all at the same time from easy to use information displays.

With EcoFest just around the corner we thought it would be a perfect time to get both of the Mayors in, lay down the challenge and see who is the greenest when it comes to driving efficiently.
Last week Nelson Mayor Aldo Miccio came in and posted a very respectable eco score of 3.7L/100km but stormed around the course in an astonishing 14 minutes, showing one and all that you can still drive efficiently and get to the meeting on time! Click here to see his photos and read the full story. This score put Aldo 7th on the Leader Board but left the door wide open for Tasman Mayor Richard Kempthorne to make a real competition of it.

Today our local Nelson mayor Aldo Miccio came by to tackle the Prius Challenge.
He was quite keen to let everyone know just how green he is when it comes to driving, but got a little distracted and somewhat excited by the shiny white Lexus ISF V8 parked beside the little eco Prius C in the showroom before we left. His true colours when it comes to cars perhaps are not so much Prius green but Italian racing red?

The conditions on the day were not the greatest for posting a super eco score - the heavy rain meant we had to use the windscreen wipers, lights and demisters on both the front and rear windscreens, so he was up against it from the start.
So how did Aldo do in the Prius Challenge?