Living with the Supra
Review by Jacob Lerklint
As car enthusiasts, whenever we hear the words Toyota Supra it's likely our minds immediately gravitate towards the iconic A80 generation. Depending upon your age, you’ll either recall it as the car that slaughtered the opposition in every group test it entered in the 1990s, complete with a rear wing big enough to make any supercar of the era wilt. Or you’ll have grown up idolising the Supra on screen in the Fast & Furious and Gran Turismo franchises. Perhaps you disappeared down the wormhole of underground street racing culture, single turbo conversions, Smokey Nagata and four-figure horsepower outputs.
The problem with such a legacy is the weight of expectation. The A80’s successor, the A90, is three years old now, and acres of column inches have already been devoted to debates of worthiness and heritage. I am not going to sit here and retread old news, my only goal is to try and convey how the car feels to drive. I touch upon the nerve because many people have become more invested in what the Supra means to them, losing sight of what it actually means to Toyota, thus what corner of the marketplace it traditionally aims to occupy. Such is the price of fame.
I put it to you, the Supra has never been the laser focused sportscar the internet would have you believe. Its talents have always been broader. The traditional rivals of the A80 were the E36 M3, Nissan 300ZX and Porsche 928 - all sporting GT cars. This is the arena my review will focus on, not the potential that can be unlocked from the platform by the aftermarket, or how it would fare against a featherweight Alpine A110.
On the surface, little has changed. There is no bump in horsepower. No evidence of a surgeon wielding their knife in a nip/tuck. The only visual clues are a sharp new set of BBS alloy wheels, matching the design of fellow GR stablemates. Around the back, the Supra scripture is now a vivid shade of blood red. That's it.
Diving into the spec sheet, you could say this new version has taken a step backward. Blunted acceleration. Shunted luxuriation - no more electric or leather seats, no adjustable lumbar support. But for people like us, it represents a literal shift toward everything we hold dear. Less weight (-38kg). Less sound deadening. Less complication. Revised steering, retuned dampers, firmer bushes and recalibrated stability control. And a clutch pedal.
Don't get me wrong, the Supra hasn't come over all hardcore on us, but the balance has tipped firmly toward the sporting side of the equation.
The upbeat energy remains as you blip the key, climb inside and clock the wonderful stubby gear lever. I can't imagine there being much of an aftermarket for short shifter kits here. The I-drive infotainment has been repositioned to make way for the gear shift, but otherwise, it's business as usual. The same view out over that long bonnet, the same (perfect) low-slung driving position. The high sills, bulbous transmission tunnel and thick pillars all give the impression of an impregnable cocoon.
Fitting this car with a manual gearbox wasn’t a straightforward endeavour. There was no off-the-shelf six-speeder ready to slot straight in. Instead, a bespoke Supra gearbox was created from the existing ZF parts bin, fitted to a modified version of the existing transmission housing, driveshaft and gear set components.
The next factor to negotiate was the high specific torque output of the straight six, which required a heavy duty, large diameter clutch featuring a reinforced diaphragm spring. To keep the acceleration competitive with the automatic, the final drive ratio has been reduced from 3.15 to 3.46. Toyota even went through several iterations of the gearknob, settling on a version weighted with an extra 200 grams because it gave the best feel - a small penalty to pay out of that initial weight saving.
The result of all that effort, I’m pleased to report, is a very sweet gearbox. The shift itself is honed, slick and accurate, gliding across the gate and slotting home with just the right amount of satisfaction. The clutch pedal also gives way and bites just the way you want it to, with no need for acclimatisation. The iMT has merit, perfectly blipping downshifts and seamlessly blending upshifts with calculated torque manipulation. Should you prefer to fly solo, you can turn it off when in sport mode.
Overall, it just lacks that final degree of mechanical bite of the truly outstanding manual gearboxes, but that's just nitpicking. Changing gear for the sake of it is an actual source of joy in the Supra, and the smile factor remains constant whether you're loping along or travelling at pace.
It goes without saying that the BMW sourced B58 straight six is a modern masterpiece. Forget the idea of it not being a special engine due to the fact you can also specify this motor in a 2 & 3-series. It has immediate response from tick-over, a thumping mid-range and enough power and soul to make chasing the 7,000+rpm redline a worthy pursuit. All this is underlined by a supreme smoothness no V6 can hope to match. You certainly don’t hanker for more performance, despite the (relatively) undernourished quoted outputs of 335hp and 500nm.
In reality, the true horsepower figure is actually much closer to the torque, with many Supra’s recording upwards of 370 hp on independent dyno’s. In fact, with so much cold, dense air turbochargers are so fond of, I wouldn’t be surprised if that number is closer to a healthy 400bhp today. It honestly feels good for it the way the Supra lunges down the road. The only real criticism of the engine is it could be a fraction more vocal at wide open throttle - although I think we can blame EU noise legislators for this one, not Toyota.
The A90 has never been a very feelsome car, gradually the trust comes through the accuracy of the steering, the bite of the brakes and the reassuring meaty control weights across the board. Before long, I’m nibbling up to, and leaning upon the safety net of the ESP. Understeer simply isn’t on the cards, and nor is excessive body roll. Get some and you’re going too fast. Everything remains all about managing those fat rear tyres. What you can sense instinctively is this car clearly has enormous reserves of grip in more favourable weather, plus ample traction, although given your proximity to the rear axle, those instincts tell you that if the Supra does let go, it’ll happen rather quickly.
It has to be said a lot has also changed in three years. The playing field has evolved. The BMW M2 has mutated into a car styled from melted Lego blocks. Its price has shot up and the weight has ballooned too. Another rival, the Jaguar F-Type, has abandoned the manual gearbox altogether in favour of the 911-chasing V8. At 735.900 SEK the Supra now looks incredible value, given the global spike in inflation has pushed the likes of a Honda Civic Type-R to 619 000sek.
Overall, is the Supra in danger of being too smooth for its own good? I don’t think so, not with three pedals keeping you occupied. However there is still room for an even more focussed car in the range. An A90 with Cup tyres, trick suspension, a fixed swan-neck rear wing and of course, a manual gearbox is a tantalising prospect. Toyota expects the manual to account for forty percent of all 3.0 Supra sales, and if you’re someone who is tempted by a Supra, I absolutely urge you to become a part of that statistic.
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