Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, reportedly swapped his 2019 Bugatti Chiron Sport, a car valued at nearly $3 million, for a 2003 Toyota Corolla to drive around Puerto Rico. The story was first reported in 2021 and has stuck around ever since, precisely because the contrast is so extreme: one of the most powerful, exclusive production cars on Earth traded for a car built its entire reputation on being cheap, reliable, and unremarkable.
Why a Beat-Up Corolla Beats a Hypercar in Puerto Rico
The reported logic behind the swap is simple: a Bugatti Chiron draws a crowd everywhere it goes, and a global superstar trying to run errands on a small island doesn’t necessarily want that kind of attention every time he leaves the house. A 20-plus-year-old Corolla, by contrast, is functionally invisible in traffic. Trading down doesn’t just save money on fuel and insurance, it buys anonymity that no amount of horsepower can.
It’s worth noting this remains a reported story rather than one confirmed through an official statement from Bad Bunny himself, but the account has circulated consistently since 2021 without a public denial, and it fits a broader pattern of ultra-wealthy celebrities keeping a deliberately unremarkable car in the rotation specifically for low-key local driving.
What Makes the Corolla the Right Choice for Blending In
The Corolla remains one of the best-selling small cars in the United States, with Toyota moving 248,088 units in 2025 and 232,908 in 2024 nationwide. The current 2026 model starts at $22,925 with a 2.0-liter four-cylinder producing 169 horsepower, rated at 32 mpg city and 41 mpg highway, while the hybrid version starts at $24,775 and reaches up to 53 mpg city and 46 mpg highway. Kelley Blue Book ranks the Honda Civic above the Corolla in the compact segment, citing interior space and resale value, and U.S. News & World Report places the Civic ahead in its overall rankings too, but neither of those rankings matters much for someone who isn’t cross-shopping the segment so much as looking for the least conspicuous car available.
A Garage That Still Has Room for Both Extremes
Bad Bunny reportedly still keeps a collection stacked with genuine performance machinery, so this was never a story about downsizing out of necessity. It’s a story about a megastar recognizing that the right car for a given moment isn’t always the fastest or most expensive one in the garage. Sometimes it’s the one nobody looks at twice.
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