Eiji Toyoda said it took hard work to create popular demand, and disputed that Toyota rode a wave of private car ownership that was taking off in the mid-1960s.

The Corolla's development was largely influenced by the success and lessons learned from an earlier, smaller vehicle called the Toyota Publica, which used an air-cooled two-cylinder, boxer engine, inspired by the Citroën 2CV.

[4] In Japan, this put it into a 1000cc engine road tax class but gave it some prestige over the Datsun 1000 - helped by its "100 cc advantage" advertising campaign.

Also new were a four-speed column-shift option and a new model: the better equipped Corolla SL two-door sedan used a twin carburetted K-B engine and had an extra 13 PS (10 kW).

The Corolla was also assembled in Sydney, Nova Scotia by Canadian Motor Industries (CMI) beginning in late 1969.

[9] CMI only ever assembled small numbers of Toyotas, as the finished cars cost ten percent more than a fully built up import and their quality was much lower.