The Toyota GR Corolla is one of the hottest hatches you can buy right now. It has 300 horsepower and all-wheel drive, but a new video captures when one got too hot and caught fire.
The GR Corolla blows its engine within the first few seconds of this video, shared by Wolf and Tiger on YouTube. The driver first notices the black smoke pouring out the back and the white smoke wafting into the cabin, then eases the hatchback across three lanes of traffic to the shoulder. He parks the car, opens the hood, gets out, finds the fire, and immediately grabs his phone to call for help.
Smoke continues billowing from the engine bay before flames appear (at around the video’s five-minute mark). Something pops in the turbocharged 1.6-liter three-cylinder engine about 30 seconds later, feeding the flames. The fire grows over the next few minutes, igniting the underside of the hood before it collapses closed.
We are treated to a very unique view of this blaze from inside the car, where a camera mounted high on the windshield recorded (and survived) the incident. The fire quickly envelops the front, sending chunks of the hood into the air and onto the windshield, which eventually cracks from the heat. Through it all, we get eerie snapping and popping sounds from heat as the Toyota slowly dies. The video ends just as the flames breach the bottom of the windshield with the sounds of the fire department arriving.
The photo at the end reveals extensive damage. The front of the Toyota is completely cooked. The bumper, hood, and headlights are gone, exposing the crispy engine and gnarled frame. The windshield collapsed, exposing the interior to the flames and the water to extinguish them. It looks like a total loss, but no one appears to have been hurt.
Car fires are dangerous because of how quickly they can spread, and this video shows one can engulf a vehicle within a few minutes. Hot engines and flammable fluids are a bad combination.
