The Corolla: still a reliable good friend

It is a frequent query: “What is your favorite car? Which do you love most?”

My answer is as shameless as it is consistent: “I am an automotive gigolo. I tend to love the car I’m with.”

Truth is, most cars nowadays have something lovable about them. The 2005 Toyota Corolla XRS sedan is an example. Its pedigree is economy. Its pretension is sporty. Its mission is commuter.

The Corolla has been around since 1968, having begun life as a dowdy but exceptionally reliable two-door, rear-wheel-drive subcompact. It became a front-wheel-drive sedan in 1984, when it also began selling as a five-door hatchback. By 1988, Toyota had sold 10 million Corolla models, including wagon versions, in the United States. That number grew to 20 million by 1997, four years after the Corolla emerged from its subcompact status to become a larger compact sedan.

Through all of its model changes, the Corolla remained true to the notion of impeccable automotive quality delivered at reasonable cost.

But the Corolla never has been an exciting car. Instead, it always has been a good friend -- trustworthy, predictable, there when needed.

It is because of those more meaningful virtues that I can forgive the stylistic silliness that characterizes the latest Corolla offering, the XRS, and still find much to love.

Strip away the XRS model’s adolescent and functionally meaningless rear air spoiler; knock off all of those plastic “ground-effects” pieces, and you get what you’ve always gotten in a Corolla -- good, basic, safe, affordable personal transportation.

Over 36 years, that formula helped the Corolla become the world’s best-selling car. But Toyota’s marketing people -- these ideas always seem to come from marketing people -- believe the Corolla’s image needs an update.

In the car industry, “updating” often means “repositioning” a product to attract younger buyers. But after spending a week driving the XRS, I can’t figure out where those marketing people get their ideas of “youth.” Teen-agers who looked at the XRS dumped on the spoiler. Their question, in summary: What’s the point?

But young and old alike gave top marks to the XRS model’s interior. It is simple, ergonomically intelligent.

And everybody loved the Lexus-like gauges in the instrument panel.

The name “Corolla” means something beyond fashion, or the latest automotive technology. For consumers, it translates to: “It works.” What’s not to love about that?