New Toyota Supra formally announced

Soldato
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One of the reasons the manual in the MKIV is more sought after is because the getrag box could handle much more power than the auto - hence i'd argue more desirable for it's technical characteristics than the driver engagement. I don't really think they need to make a manual MKV variant as the demand in cars these days is mostly auto. If it's a good auto box, suited to the car and performs well, then I'd much rather that than a manual these days.

Same way I think the GT-R not having a manual isn't a big deal - the GR6 is a good gearbox and can handle power (to a point) - designed for the car and suits it.
 
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I will say, though, that the automatic MkIV (in twin-turbo form) was quite a thing to drive and I preferred it to the manual one. It suited the car far better, being a GT, and drove and shifted in quite a pleasing fashion. The manual has its issues, after all; the shift action isn't that great, in my experience, and they're also no longer supported – so, if it goes bang, you're in a four-figure world of pain.

I wouldn't discount an auto TT, in any case, and they will live at in the 400-500lb ft range with a bigger trans cooler. There are upgrades available, too, to make them survive beyond that.
 
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Was it not the case that most Supra Twin Turbos had an autobox?

There seems to be quite a lot of nostalgic revisionism going on here.

The MkIV Supra was mostly a lardy automatic GT in its day. Not a precision sports car.

That's bang on, it was not a sports car quite like an RX7 was for example but a GT cruiser. It's a bit unfair to compare the new stock model to tuned versions of Supra which seems to be what is going on.
 
Soldato
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The car needs a manual gearbox and why didn’t Toyota just implement all the stuff them have left for ‘tuning companies’ themselves :confused:
 
Soldato
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The US version comes with 385hp I think, so it's capable of that from the off. We get a down-tuned one for emissions reasons but that is easily fixed.
 
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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?

The R35 GTR started at about £55k when it originally launched IIRC.
 
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Spotted one whilst over in Munich.

IMG-20190517-222728.jpg
 
Soldato
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The R35 GTR started at about £55k when it originally launched IIRC.
Yeah that's the point, imagine if they had launched it at £30k, the corners they would have had to cut and the compromises they would have had to make.


What whereas the Mk IV Supra NA did?
Of course, I get the feeling you meant that more as a snide remark than a question but I'll explain anyway. At the time the MK4 launched almost all Supras had been NA, and the only one that had previously been noticeably faster than the MK4 NA was the (Japan only) 1990 revision of the MK3 with the 2.5L TT JZ engine that Toyota launched as a stop gap response to the Z32 300ZX.
 
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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.

They could surely have used their own 2GR-FE engine and produced a turbo variant if that's what you are alluding too?

Toyota basically sold out on this one and went for the lowest cost project possible going completely off the shelf and German no less.

It doesn't surprise me. Toyota have basically lost the plot entirely when it comes to performance variants for the last 20 years, and have neither the imagination or will power to build proper Toyota bred performance halo cars like they used to.

In thei heyday they had at least 4 tiers of self built or Yamaha collaboration performance, starting with the ae86( NA), MR2 (Supercharged, then turbocharged), the Celica (turbo), Supra twin turbo. All on sale in one guise or another concurrently.

Now they have the gt86 Subaru, and soon the BMW supra.hardly inspiring stuff.
 
Soldato
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It's getting harder to make and sell cars like this though :(

In the 90s you could buy a real monster for not a huge amount of money. The equivalents now would be hitting 100k or more. The masses now just want dull SUVs for some reason.

If you want to go really fast on 4 wheels for "cheap" these days. Buy something like a Westfield. Which is probably going to be my next buy :D
 
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