Facelifted Toyota Corolla Cross fully revealed – When to expect it in South Africa

Toyota’s Thailand division is the first to take the wraps off the facelifted Corolla Cross, after teasing the crossover back in early January.

The new Cross features a radically redesigned front fascia and a generously updated equipment sheet, and it will go on sale in the Asian nation in the coming weeks.

When TopAuto spoke to the domestic arm of Toyota about the local launch of the new Cross last month, the company said: “The Asian product timing and model line-up differs quite vastly from our market. As such, we tend to follow a different model and specification strategy.”

Therefore, this specific version of the high-riding Corolla may not come to South African roads.

However, it does give us our first impressions as to how the enhanced model may look once it reaches local showrooms, and an indication of when it could make its debut.

If we consider that the Thai market was the first one in the world in which the Corolla Cross went on sale, which happened in July 2020, while South Africa only got the crossover in November of the following year, we can surmise that the current model should be updated for our market in roughly a year and a half – putting its predicted launch date in mid-2025.

What to expect

The 2024 Corolla Cross in Thailand sports a new multi-dimensional honeycomb grille, a redesigned front bumper with more aggressive side flairs, a textured chrome strip between the new LED Crystalized headlights, sequential LED front turn signals, revised taillight clusters, and an updated selection of two-tone alloy wheels.

Continuing inside, there is a new 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster that replaces the multi-info driver’s display of before, a larger 10.1-inch central infotainment system now offering wireless smartphone mirroring, a wireless charger, an electronic handbrake, a frameless panoramic roof with electric sunshades, and a new Black/Dark Rose colour combination for the upholstery that supplies a “feel of luxury and superiority,” said Toyota.

Depending on the model, the Cross now also benefits from an assortment of advanced driver assistance systems including radar cruise control, blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert, a 360-degree camera programme, automatic braking assistance, and auto-hold brakes.

In Thailand, the facelifted Cross retains the familiar engine assortment that we also have in South Africa, comprising 1.8-litre petrol and petrol-hybrid configurations.

The petrol-only option generates 103kW in our market and registers a combined fuel usage of 6.8l/100km, whereas the hybrid puts out 90kW and burns fuel at a rate of 4.3l/100km. All variants drive the front wheels only through a continuously variable transmission (CVT).

Based on this, we expect that the local Cross will keep both choices available to customers when it’s revised in the future.