Pretty much, they sold well in lower specs to people that just used them to goto the shops and back so I’m not sure that helped very much.
Also when you said 97 I expected an early E11, that’s very late on for an E10. They seem to get bitten by the rust bug a bit sadly. At my local Toyota dealer there’s an oldish guy that used to clean their cars and now photos them, always end up talking to him if I go in as he loves his Toyotas, he was until recently running that shape as a daily but an early 94 Xi, absolute base spec. Looked mint from the outside but he sadly had to get rid as the rear inner wings were going and he couldn’t find any decent replacements to get welded in, but just upgraded to slightly newer old Corolla. 