New Toyota Corolla solid but not very exciting

— -- The radical thing about Toyota's redesign of its strong-selling Corolla compact sedan is how little the big Japanese automaker advanced the car — particularly in contrast with Honda's heroic makeover of the Civic, Corolla's main rival.

Honda offers an optional five-speed automatic transmission across the board. Toyota stayed with a four-speed, reserving a five-speed for the optional engine.

Honda penned a dramatic, futuristic look; Toyota kept mainstream, Camry-esque styling.

Honda reconfigured the interior to match the promise of the sheet metal. Toyota's interior also is a good match with the outside, which means it's a bit plain.

Honda has made power windows standard. Toyota gives you hand cranks on all but the high-end Corolla, unless you pay $625 for a "power package" to get electric windows (and remote door locks).

So flog Toyota round the fleet? Nope.

Turns out Corolla, as unimaginative, uninspired and underfeatured it might seem, remains a reassuringly solid and appealing small car.

And add this potentially important factor: Toyota makes stability control, including traction control, standard on the XRS sport model and will sell it on other models for a modest $250. It even has an "off" switch for when the car would work better without the traction control (in gravel or deep snow, for instance).

Honda puts stability control on the sportiest Civic but doesn't offer it on all other Civics.

The wagon-like Matrix, based on the Corolla and also sold by Pontiac as the Vibe, was redesigned at the same time. It's different enough in appearance and intention that it'll be considered on its own later.

You might question what Toyota was smoking when it decided to keep hand-crank windows, like those on the Corolla Sport test car. Turns out that Toyota Motor Sales, U.S. distributor of Toyota and Lexus vehicles, has to pay Toyota Motor Corp., the Japanese parent, extra for every accessory or upgrade on the U.S. models. Making cranks standard on all but the XLE trimmed a bit from what TMS has to pay TMC per car, according to spokesman Bill Kwong.