The Corolla WRC car was first introduced in the Monte Carlo WRC event in 1998. Toyota officials stated that during its development stages the car was already 0.7 sec/Km faster than the Celica on tarmac! The Corolla WRC has proved a very competitive car and ultimately made it to become World Champion. The car vaguely looks like the street Corolla version but the resemblance stops there. It was a 4WD turbocharged monster (whereas the commercial Corollas are 2WD and have no turbo engines), which was compact and powerful enough to defeat any competitor. To produce a Corolla WRC chassis from a street version chassis, 400 work hours were necessary. A total of 57 Toyota Corolla WRC cars left the TTE workshops between 1997 and 1999. Among these 33 were used by the works team while the other 24 were sold to private teams.