Cassettes, keys and maps – kids baffled by tech in old vs new Toyotas in film to celebrate five millionth car produced at the Burnaston factory

What would today’s children make of the cars of 30 years ago? To celebrate building its five millionth car in the UK – a Corolla, Toyota asked a group of children of its Burnaston factory employees to compare the car their parents help to make, with the first car made at the factory when it opened in 1992 – a Carina E, and filmed the surprising results.  

This is the first in a series of Toyota films in which children explore different Corollas including a police car, Touring Sport and Corolla Commercial.  

Hosted by children’s TV presenter Grace Webb, the film shows the nine to 12-year-olds undertaking a series of challenges comparing the Corolla hatchback with the Carina E hatchback, focusing their attention on specific features that show how cars have changed in the 32 years since Toyota Manufacturing UK (TMUK) began operations. The Corolla is arguably the world’s most popular passenger car, with more than 50 million sold to date*.  

One team of children focused on a Corolla GR Sport Hatchback hybrid, and another a petrol-engine Carina E: 

• Entering the Car

  Team A were given a car key to unlock the Carina E – a clunky affair that took several minutes of fiddling, while Team B used the remote control lock/unlock function on the MyToyota App to gain keyless entry – a task accomplished in seconds.   

• Navigating to a theme park

  The teams were asked how quickly they could find out where Alton Towers is.  Team A wrestled with a fold-out map inside the Carina E and resorted to opening it out on the bonnet, with Alina Ivanovs, age nine, sighing ‘this is going to take us forever’. The mission was not accomplished. 

  Team B used the Corolla’s ‘Hey Toyota’ voice command system to operate the car’s cloud-based navigation, which gave them the journey time and distance in seconds. 

• Playing music for a road trip

  Team A struggled to identify just what the cassette tape they were given to play was, with 12-year-old Freya O’Connell thinking it was a floppy disk. They started by trying to insert the whole plastic case. Once they had found the cassette inside, they then had trouble finding the correct slot.  Team B quickly identified that they could pair Spotify with the Corolla through their smartphone, to play music through the car’s sound system.   

Monica Tamber, age 12, from Team B, commented on the filming: “I really enjoyed the whole experience, meeting everyone and Grace, and liked the filming side of it because of the cameras and lights; I loved doing retakes as it made me feel like a celebrity! It was interesting learning about the history of the old car. I realised that it needs a key for everything like opening the door and even the boot, whereas with the new car you can use an app – it was so impressive! I met so many people that work at Toyota and it made me realise the different jobs they all do and how much goes into making one car.”  

Stuart Sanders, age 45 and a quarter, Toyota (GB) Director of Communications and Product commented: “We thought it would be fun to turn the traditional car review on its head and ask the children of our employees to examine the cars their parents help to make, as they will be the drivers of the future. The results didn’t disappoint and clearly illustrate how far we have come in evolving our technology to suit the customer needs of the time.  The film captures the Toyota principle of continuous improvement that makes today’s cars safer, easier to use and better connected to people’s lives – features that are built into every car we make in the UK.” 

Children featured in Kids Review Cars: 

Team A