I've been watching video reviews/reveals on this car now for the past couple of days, and I'm sooooooooooooooo dissapointed. I mean I knew it was always going to be "just a BMW with Supra styling", that was announced by Toyota ages ago, but the Supra fan in me still hoped it would have enough... Supraness to warrant the name, I was still putting off getting a new car until this hit, I wanted to like it, but now I'm kinda lost.
I think the biggest problem here is the price, it's far too cheap (accounting for inflation it's ~ half the price of it's predacessor). Now that may sound ridiculous but it means this car has been built to a budget, not a spec/vision/reputation and you just can't do that when bringing back a legend, imagine if Nissan had decided the R35 GTR would be priced the same as the 370z, what corners would they have had to cut? With the MK5 Supra the cost cutting is obvious, it may look vaguly like a MK4 Supra from the outside but there is no Supra styling in the cabin, it's just a BMW interiour with a Toyota badge on the wheel, gone is the Supra style interiour from the MK3/4. Now obviously some limitations of the Z4 base would have been impossible for Toyota to work around (I.E no rear seats) but the interiour debacle could have been fixed simply by spending more on production (and raising the price). Toyota are not aiming this car at the type of person who would have previously bought a Supra, they are aiming it at the type of person who previously would have bought a 10 year old used Supra, and this "budget Supra" design mentality has a detrimental effect on both the car and it's attempt to live up to the legacy.
The hilerious thing is, Toyota say they had to partner with BMW to make the car and that it couldn't have been done 100% in house/etc. But we all know they are lying through their teeth because all they had to do was take an IS/GS350 engine, add an aftermarket bolt on turbo kit, put it in the Lexus LC500 (which actually has a modern Supra style interiour and feels more like being in an MK4 than anything else on the market) and they would have had an instant MK5 Supra. They just wern't willing to risk canabalising Lexus sales/product line to make the new Supra (which is comical as Lexus spent it's first 15 years just selling rebadged Toyotas with added leather), which in itself shows they were never serious about brining back the Supra, it was just a cash grab.
Don't get me wrong, it looks to be a great car, if it was called the "Toyota Spectre" or something it would 100% be capable of standing on it's own two feet. However IMO trying to boost sales by nailing on the Supra name does more to hurt this car than help it as it cannot live up to the requirements of that name.