Welcome back Supra

The Toyota Supra like all the other Japanese sports cars was a tuners dream, when launched it competed with the Nissan GTR’s Mazda RX-7, and Honda NSX. This blog is written to address the issue of how we are left with only one true Japanese sports car that has stuck to its grass roots, that is the Nissan GTR, the R35 is still the supercar beater that it always was but with a slightly higher price tag.

The motive of this essay is to convey my thoughts on how Toyota killed the Supra yet it is re-born as a fierce samurai fighter who was raised in Germany.

About the Supra

The fighter was born as regular old sports car with low horse power, and highly reliable engine. The car starts its journey 40 years back in 1979 as the Celica Supra, the middle name a reference to its shared chassis with Toyota’s smaller Celica sports coupe.  Later in the 80’s the two models split the celiac was the smaller sports car but the more success full car was the supra.  April 1978 Toyota began production of the Supra in Japan, as the Celica XX, and sold alongside the Celica, the supra was offered with a 2.0L engine putting out 123 hp. In 1981 Toyota completely redesigned the Celica supra it had pop-up headlights and a longer hood to accommodate an inline six. In the North American market, the Celica Supra was available in two distinct models. There was the "Performance Type" (P-type) and the "Luxury Type" (L-type). Another unique and notable feature of the 1982 supra was that the suspension was independent and was tuned by lotus. The major change in 1986 was that the Celica and Supra were now totally different as Celica became a small front wheel drive sports car.

Perhaps the most famous and sort after model of the Supra is the A80 due to the movie Fast and the Furious, finally Toyota gave emphasis to performance. And the turbocharged variant could accelerate to 97kmph in 4.6 sec. For this generation, the Supra received a new six-speed Getrag/Toyota V160 gearbox on the turbo models while the naturally aspirated models made do with a five-speed manual  W58 transmission, revised from the previous model. Each model was offered with a four-speed automatic with manual shifting mode.

the concept  Supra 

The rebirth of the supra (A90)

After 20 years without a new supra the expectations and impatiens in every car fan grew when the new supra was announced. The supra like the NSX was a lost Japanese hero waiting to be reborn. The rumours were out that the Supra was going to share the same platform as the BMW Z4, this triggered several fans as the Supra was now more of a German car now with the same 3.0L 4 cylinder making 350 hp. The A90 even has the same suspension and electronics from the BMW Z4.

Does this mean it’s a bad car?

No it is still like the old A80 gen supra with loads of room for tuner companies to dial of the power, handling and looks. So one should in fact look at the A90 as a car that has observed the true usage of the A80 gen supra, as most of the Supra’s are pushing out a minimum of 650 to the wheel, the number of unmodified 1000hp A80 Supra’s can be counted on your fingers for most of them are not stock. Hence it is safe to say that the A90 supra will also be tuned and modified to the limit. As a car guy and a Supra fan himself I am not too disappointed

first 2jz swapped A90 Supra