One of Toyota’s quintessential hero cars of the 80s and 90s, the Supra, is back with its iconic turbo inline 6-cylinder power and even a true 6-speed manual transmission on offer. Who would have thought the purveyor of countless Prii (yes that’s the official plural of Prius) and Camrys would be back in market with so many performance car offerings like the Supra, GR86 and the GR Corolla and all with available manual transmissions!
Toyota took the challenge and brought their stunning FT-1 concept car from the 2014 Detroit Auto Show (where your author was on hand with the Toyota corporate team) and translated it to the production Supra you see today. The journey to the real world was possible through its partnership with BMW. Some may cry foul and sacrilegious that something that is so core to Toyota is at heart now also largely Bavarian. BMW happens to be great, possibly unmatched at this point, at turbo inline 6-cylinder powertrains, making some of the smoothest in the business with effortless swells of power that belie their seemingly conservative ratings.
Toyota doesn’t shy away from partnerships these days, as it helps bring potentially low volume products to market. The GR86 is produced with help (and running gear) from Subaru, a relationship that also powers their first modern EV the bZ4X. So if a partnership with a top tier performance vehicle manufacturer is what it takes to make the business case for the Supra, so be it! I had way more fun driving the Supra than I would have had not driving one at all.
What makes it fun? Let’s start with the show car looks. Plastic vents aside, the deeply drawn fenders and duckbill tail at the back and along with the sculpted semi-clamshell hood up front with its F1-esque bulge just beg you to touch the metal. Distinctive lighting front and rear will have you looking back as you walk away at night as well, if not just for the splash of yellow color on our tester that earned the name “Big Bird” from our daughter. Sadly it looks like yellow is no longer on offer for the 2024 model year.
Stepping inside (after you likely bang your head on the low door cut line, seriously, watch out) it’s a little less dramatic. You definitely see a fair share of generation-old BMW parts bin items. But again, it all works and there’s a lot to like. No the seats aren’t quite as adjustable as typical BMW sport seats, no thigh extender, but there are power adjustable bolsters. There’s also wireless CarPlay, wireless device charging and even an available head up display.
Let’s see, what else is fun. Oh yeah, DRIVING! The inline 6 claims to have “just” 382 horsepower and nearly as much torque. That all goes to the ground via the rear wheels and can be controlled through either an 8-speed automatic which is one of the best around, but also via a 6-speed manual as fitted on Big Bird. I don’t think I could daily drive a Supra (not enough space for 2 car seats) so for my desired driving, it would be manual transmission all the way. Will these be some of the last great manual transmission rear wheel drive cars on the market? It definitely looks that way. The available adaptive suspension and active exhaust just add to the theater of it all with burbles and pops to your hearts delight. Yes, some of our EVs might be quicker, but they’re nowhere near this visceral of an experience.
The throws of the manual transmission are decidedly un-BMW like, with fairly short and direct throws. It can even rev-match your downshifts if you want it too, and you should want it to. My 4-year old was fascinated with a quick stint of sitting alongside dad and watching front row the dance of clutch and moving the shifter. She declared that one day she too would drive a manual transmission. I’m not crying you’re crying. My work here is done.
For most people out there, it’s hard to justify a sports coupe, especially one with no real additional passenger space. If you need a back seat and/or all-wheel drive, I suppose you could go over to BMW and pick up the M240i coupe, but then you’d lose out on the manual transmission, BMW makes you step up to the M2 for that bit of kit. Although with the liftback, you can squeeze in some bags and bigger things in the cargo area. But the Supra definitely isn’t doing any Home Depot runs unless you’re picking up a couple new cabinet handles or those free paint stirring sticks.
Chalk up one to Toyota for keeping the joy of driving is readily accessible (ok maybe $60,000 isn’t readily accessible). The love of cars with kids and adult kids is alive and well as long as we can continue to create cars with character. It’s great to see products like this Supra continue to see the light of day and we need as many of them as possible before those lights get turned off, no matter what it takes or who companies have to partner with. Sometimes the end result is truly greater than the sum of the parts that go into it.
