2023 Toyota Corolla Cross offers a little bit of fun

2023 Honda HR-V AWD EX-L vs. 2023 Toyota Corolla Cross XLE AWD: Tiny rivals.

This week: Toyota Corolla Cross

Price: $33,550 as tested. Major options include moonroof and power lift gate, $1,250; auto-leveling front lighting, $615; activity mount, $399; crossbars, $299. More noted below.

Conventional wisdom: Motor Trend liked the “soft ride, easy-to-use controls, reasonably attractive,” but not that it’s “slow” and has “plodding dynamics, tight rear seat.”

Marketer’s pitch: “For every turn in life.”

Reality: Some fun, but mostly checking the boxes.

What’s new: The Corolla Cross extra-small SUV, originally available in 2022, is sized just below the RAV4. This is a vehicle that Toyota has been needing to offer as their RAV4 has grown ever larger and other brands have rolled out vehicles of this size. It takes the Corolla sedan and turns it into an SUV, but seems like it’s designed to fill a competitive niche, not enhance it.

Mr. Driver’s Seat generally doesn’t make too much of vehicles’ appearance, but despite Motor Trend’s thumbs-up, the big fat Tacoma-style grille really repels.

Competition: Highlights from the extra-small set includes Buick Encore, Chevrolet Trailblazer, Hyundai Kona, Kia Seltos and Soul, Mazda CX-30, Subaru Crosstrek, and Volkswagen Taos.

Friends and stuff: The Corolla Cross doesn’t offer terrible accommodations for friends and family. It’s nearly identical in the back to the Sturgis Family Soul, which provides great legroom, headroom, and foot room.

We managed to take the Corolla Cross on numerous trips with the fam — to Lancaster, Doylestown, and Philadelphia, each about 30 to 40 miles — and even brought three of the Sturgis Kids along on the Lancaster journey and the complaints were few. Sturgis Kid 4.0 even spent the Lancaster trip in the middle seat, and while he was perched up high, he declared it wasn’t too bad.

Cargo space is 24.3 cubic feet behind the second row; measurements with the seat folded down were not provided.

Up to speed: The Corolla Cross is not going to win any performance tests, but it offers more get-up-and-go than I expected. Even with five occupants on various hills and curvy country roads, I never felt like I had to strain the SUV to keep going.

The 2.0-liter, four-cylinder engine produces 169 horsepower, and gets to 60 mph in 9.3 seconds, according to Motor Trend. That’s quite slow, but way faster than the HR-V, which took almost 2 more seconds.

Shiftless: The Corolla Cross features a par-for-the-course Toyota continuously variable transmission (CVT), but this one offers nine steps for shifting. The transmission could be a hair bit balky when the vehicle was still cold, but overall the power was delivered smoothly. Shifting happened only through the floor lever, and was responsive and kinda fun, something that Toyota has become better at.

On the curves: Handling-wise, the Corolla Cross won’t knock any socks off, but it does slip through the slaloms with ease. The vehicle can take curves at some ambitious speeds and not feel like it will tip over. Advantage, Toyota.

Driver’s Seat: The plain black dashboard has silver trims and an ebony multimedia border, all part of the Corolla aesthetic. The upgraded Softex seat did seem a little on the warm side, though, and ventilators are not to be had.

On the road: The Corolla Cross requires some raised voices on the highway to hear from front to back, which is becoming more rare these days.

Play some tunes: If you’re making a noisy vehicle, at least make sure the stereo is up to the job, because this one is not. I never found myself making such tremendous adjustments in volume from song to song.

Even without the background noise, the stereo that’s provided — with the $1,465 Audio Plus package — is less than stellar. I actually found the JBL speakers played most songs acceptably, but on others it fell short, so about a B. Slight advantage HR-V.

The 8-inch touchscreen interface works nicely, though, as I’ve found on most Toyotas.

Keeping warm and cool: Dials control the temperature and buttons control everything else. The readout is easy to see and follow. The rectangular blowers direct the air out of your face, which I guess is all one could ask for.

Fuel economy: On the bright side, the Corolla Cross did offer a consistent 27.8 miles per gallon, long before I had it and even throughout my hard-driving tests. That’s far better than the HR-V.

Where it’s built: Huntsville, Ala.

How it’s built: Consumer Reports predicts the Corolla Cross reliability to be a 3 out of 5.

In the end: Between the two, it’s the Corolla Cross for me. I’m not usually in a huge hurry, but the HR-V had me planning out entrance ramps and hills far more than a 2023 vehicle that gets 25 mpg should.

A hybrid version of the Corolla Cross has arrived for 2023 and that intrigues me even more.

Among the competition, the Volkswagen Taos and Subaru Crosstrek would be my picks.