Aging Toyota Corolla facing small-car tsunami
http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110217/RETAIL01/110219878/1261
LOS ANGELES (Bloomberg) -- When Doug Hacker of Milford, Ohio, began shopping for a small car recently, he figured the model he'd end up buying was a foregone conclusion.
A self-described "Toyota guy," Hacker was inclined to go with Toyota Motor Corp.'s workhorse Corolla.
The venerable compact is the Japanese automaker's No. 1 model as well as the world's best-selling car of all time, with cumulative sales from 1966 through last year surpassing 37 million units.
Well, the spell has been broken, at least in Hacker's case.
After testing the Corolla, he was disappointed by the car's old-fashioned four-speed automatic transmission and the absence of a gas-sipping direct-injection fuel system.
He decided to buy Ford Motor Co.'s 2012 Focus instead.
"I could not believe how outdated everything is," on the Corolla, he says. ......