- Oh, the Toyota Supra, a car that was ultimately
a complete and utter sales flop that with the help
of some Hollywood fame and super high horsepower examples
creating viral automotive videos
during YouTube's rise and cemented the Supra
as a household name of legacy, performance, and clout.
But now with five generations of Supra,
there's a ton of options out there for you to get your hands
on a performance oriented JDM piece of history
and they're all kind of at varying different price points.
But which one of those generations is going to put
the biggest smile on your face
for the least amount of money?
Which one is gonna be more fun to drive,
more capable, and attract the most attention?
Because let's be honest.
This is an important thing for most of us,
or maybe more importantly, which one is gonna
be the best combinations of those things and take
home the W on this episode
of What Generation is Best: Toyota Supra.
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Let's get started.
Contrary to popular belief,
the Supra didn't debut as its own car.
Supra was actually introduced to the world
as more of a trim level of the Toyota Celica in 1979
that would designate the six-cylinder performance variant
of the Toyota Celica.
The first-generation A40 Celica Supra was based
on the popular Celica Liftback design
but it was both longer and wider
than the regular four-cylinder Celica Liftback
to make room for that larger 2.6 liter inline-six,
which was the first Toyota produced engine
to be equipped with electronic fuel injection
and produced a very modern at the time 110 horsepower.
The new $9,500 Celica Supra was available
with both a manual and an automatic transmission
and it came standard with front
and rear independent suspension, wow!
And four wheel disc brakes, which in 1979,
that technology was pretty breakthrough to be honest.
Outside of the addition of luxury items
such as optional leather trimmed seating
and automatic climate control,
the Supra remained relatively unchanged until 1981
where the Supra became the 850
and was given a 2.8 liter single overhead cam engine
that bumped power up to a whopping 116.
And it was optionally available
with the new "sports suspension package"
that was supposed to "improve handling."
For 1982, Toyota gave the Celica
and the Celica Supra a complete new redesign.
Now available as two distinct models,
the Celica Supra L-type, starting at $13,500,
and the Celica Supra Performance
which tacked on there an additional $1,000.
The Celica Supra also received another engine upgrade here
as well with the new 5M-GE, which was still a 2.8 liter,
but it now had two cams over the head
and produced nearly 150 horsepower
and just over 150 pound feet of torque.
Both the L-type and the performance package Supras
were pretty well mechanically identical
and was mostly visual differences,
such things as fender flares, wider wheels and tires
and a more sport-oriented interior.
The A60 Celica Supra had a sloping hood
with hideaway pop-up headlights with the angular roof
and window line typical of the era
to give you that era appropriate aggressive wedged shape
and featured suspension tuned by Lotus
which is still even a high praise today.
The A60 Supra, although pretty expensive
became quite the success story
and won Motor Trend's 1982 import car of the year
and it even made Car and Driver's
10 best list in 1983 and 1984.
And by its final year in 1986,
it made 161 horsepower and would have sold more
than 115,000 A60 Supras in the United States.
Then halfway through 1986,
the Supra brand was finally given its own identity
and it would no longer be part of the Celica Supra range,
but it would still feature that classic wedge shape
with pop-up headlights and all the other 80s era
styling cues that was oh so popular in its day.
The new third generation A70 1986 and a half Supra received
an even larger 3-liter six-cylinder engine
still with dual overhead cams
and would get a very significant power bump
up to 200 horsepower.
But then in 1987, Toyota doubled down
on its performance success and aimed to take
over the entire sports car market
by adding a turbocharged 230 horsepower model to the lineup.
Zero to 60 now took about six seconds
which meant it was a real sports car competitor
at the time straight out of the box.
But not a lot of the cars stayed stock.
While most of its domestic competition
stayed naturally aspirated, the Supra was actually able
to make really decent power
with just a few aftermarket parts that were really
pretty much basic bolt-ons
and then a little bit of software.
Whereas to make a Camaro of the same vintage compete
on the same power level, you would really need a lot
of money and then you're gonna have to change the cam
and the valvetrain, or even change the heads altogether.
The Mark III Supra was also available
with an optional target style sport roof
to give the sports car buyers a nice convertible feel.
But with the addition of all this new technology,
a turbocharger and its extra components,
the Supra now weighed nearly 3,500 porkin' pounds,
which might not sound like a lot by today's standards,
but this was nearly 300 pounds heavier
than the V8 Mustang GT of similar vintage.
However, despite the weight, magazines and consumers
alike would come to praise the Mark III Supra's ability
to handle, thanks to its adjustable damping
and limited slip differential.
By the generations end in 1992, the A70 Supra would cost
nearly $20,000 but it still sold at just a hair shy
of 110,000 units of Mark III Supra.
And then in 1993, Toyota would let the world
in on a little secret project they'd been working on.
As it turns out, Toyota hired a bunch of mad scientists,
engineers, plans of complete and utter world domination
with their eyes set on giving Supercars
a run for their money.
The new fourth generation A80 Supra
was a complete departure from past Supras.
Performance was now the name of the game
and despite the car being a little bit wider,
the Mark IV Supra Turbo is nearly 130 pounds lighter
than the outgoing Mark III.
The turbo model was hailed by many major magazines
as a true world dominating sports car.
The Mark IV Supra Turbo ditched the old 7M-GTE engine
from a previous turbo generation
and in 1993, we would receive the 2JZ-GTE,
which utilized an iron block for extra strength
and had a very stout rotating assembly
which would become famous for its ability
to not kind of self-implode under high boost applications.
This is also where you saw Toyota play
around with sequential turbos.
Essentially what this does is it allows one
of the smaller turbos to spool up at 2,500 RPM
for low end torque and then there's a second
larger turbo that spools up later in the RPM
to make that big power at that higher RPM.
This helped the Mark IV Supra become one
of the quickest cars that you could buy
without going deep into the supercar realm
and spending over six figures.
With that being said,
all this technology did make it very expensive.
MSRP was up almost 35% in price
over the previous generation, which is very steep,
especially in the early 90s.
And although the A80 Supra absolutely demolished
its competition in the magazine articles and in video games,
the Mark IV Supra sales were so low
that Toyota seized all sales in the United States
after 1998 with only 11,200 units being sold
in that five-year run state side.
It was a complete and total flop of a consumer car.
But over the years, the Supra nameplate would gain fame
and become a dream car for many after it was featured
as a hero car in the Fast Movie Saga.
Shortly following, we would start to see the explosion
of self-produced street racing videos on DVD
from the likes of Mischief, 1320 video, Super Speeders,
and then along came YouTube.
And these all showcased 600, 800, 1,000 to 1,500
and beyond horsepower 2JZ Supras taking on the entire world.
Its late bloom to world fame brought on an onslaught
of people begging for a new Supra,
to which Toyota said (beep) off.
But after enough demand, Toyota did decide to sit down
and come up with a plan to bring people what they've wanted.
Since Toyota knew that they couldn't afford
to take all the risk here, Toyota actually teamed up
with BMW to make the Supra a reality
in 2019 as the 2020 model year.
The brand new Mark V A90 Supra was largely developed by BMW
being literally on the same platform as the BMW Z4,
but then it was tuned by Toyota.
And though the new Supra isn't powered
by a Toyota engine per se,
it remains very close to its roots.
Although the engine would only make a proclaimed
"15 more horsepower" than its nearly
20 year-old counterpart, the technology involved
in this power would give the Mark V Supra
the ability to accelerate to 60 nearly
an entire second quicker and with the quarter mile
also a second quicker as well.
Let alone now being able to generate
over 1.05 G of cornering force
and overall just does everything a lot better.
And when you consider both inflation after 20 years
and the collector car status of the Mark IV Supra Turbo,
the new Supra actually does it all better
dare I say for cheaper.
And then for 2021, there's another big power bump
and some common complaints that were addressed,
none of which offering the call of the manual transmission,
but let's be real, the ZF 8-speed
is an extremely good transmission
and it fits the vehicle dynamics very well.
With that, the extremely aggressive and almost exotic look
of the A90 and then A91 Supra garners
a ton of attention everywhere it goes.
But with that being said,
which Supra is the best Supra of all time?
Is it the first generation that started it all?
Is it the third generation that separated
its name plate into its own model
and brought turbo charged six-cylinders to the masses?
Or is it the uber famous supercar slaying Mark IV
that won the hearts of all of us?
Well, I really wanted to give the Mark IV the W here.
The Mark IV helped pave the way
for a ton of enthusiasts to get into cars.
It became the undefeated underdog
of the battle of import versus domestic.
And it was the poster car for many generations of car kids.
But at the end of the day,
with the Mark IV Supra prices making them completely
and utterly unattainable for the average car guy,
I'm gonna have to give this one to the A90 and A91 Supra.
Now that these cars have hit the used market
and the hype starts to fall off,
being able to buy one of these cars
for 40 to $50,000 presents a ton of value for the money.
When you consider the 20 year old version
that's a lot slower, more fragile, and doesn't come
with a warranty costs the same amount of money.
I get it.
You're mad because nostalgia and it makes total sense.
The Mark IV is a priceless legend,
but it is not the best Supra.
But that about wraps it up
for this special Supra episode
of the What Generation is Best series.
We will be making more videos just like this one.
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I'm Sean. SeanB.FI on Instagram.
Thank you so much for watching. Peace.