The world's most popular car just got a makeover.

Toyota unveiled the new 2020 Corolla sedan, which promises to be more efficient and more enjoyable to drive than the current model. A hatchback version of the car was unveiled last April at the New York Auto Show and is on sale now, but the sedan is the car most people recognize as "the Corolla."

The generally unexciting, unassuming Corolla long ago passed such cultural icons as Ford's Model T and Volkswagen's Beetle on its way to becoming the best-selling car model ever. More than 45 million have been sold globally since the Corolla was introduced in 1966, helping to usher in a period of rapid growth for the Japanese auto industry.

Its popularity helped make Toyota the global force it is today. So, while the unveiling of a new multimillion dollar supercar may seem more exciting, the introduction of a new Corolla is unquestionably more important for both the auto industry and for far more people who actually buy cars.

The Toyota Corolla XSE, shown here, is the top-of-the-line version offering the most features and the most performance.

From a business standpoint, the most important thing about this new car is that, once it goes on sale around the globe, the Corolla will be essentially the same car everywhere. In recent years, cars called the Corolla that were sold in different parts of the world have not always been closely related. In the United States alone, Toyota dealers sold the Corolla and the Corolla iM, two completely different small cars with the same name.

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