What makes the Toyota Supra so iconic?
After all, sales of the car were so low that the model was discontinued in America
in 1998.
“So now you owe me a 10 second car” These were the famous words that catapulted
the Supra Mk4 to fame in the first Fast and Furious movie.
The Supra became that 10-second car, a road legal car that can do a quarter mile
in 10.9 seconds or less.
Soon the world knew what tuners had known all along.
The Toyota Supra had the potential for extreme speed.
Long before the movie, the Supra Mk4 had become synonymous with
tuning culture.
There was a good reason for this.
Just like all Toyota engines, the Supra was a reliable car.
More than that, it was a reliable sports car at a time when not all sports cars
were reliable.
But most importantly, for the tuning community, the
engine was seriously overbuilt.
This engine was released at a time when there was an unspoken
gentleman’s agreement in Japan.
Carmakers were limiting horsepower to around 280-hp to keep roads safer.
So Toyota built this incredible engine that was capable of so much more
power.
You could customize it just like you wanted it.
And a few relatively easy adjustments unlocked a lot more power.
The engine block was key.
It was cast from a single block of heavy-duty cast iron.
This made it heavier but also stronger.
So, it could handle much higher horsepower without cracking.
The car was also smoother thanks to the inline-six design which reduced vibrations.
The Formula One-inspired braking system put it at the top of a 1997
test by Car and Drive Magazine.
Heavily modified units of the 2JZ engine by an enthusiastic aftermarket
have been able to reach 2000-hp.
It was this tunability that got it noticed by the producers of Fast and
Furious.
It was clearly not a 10-second car in its stock form.
But that was the point for a movie about tuning fast cars.
It had the potential to go at speeds that were insane.
Craig Liberman discovered this one day in 1997.
Craig was the owner of the Supra Mk4 car that starred in Fast and
Furious.
He’d been a car guy since 1980.
One day in 1997 he was driving his Mustang GT when he had
a stoplight challenge with a guy driving a Supra Mk4.
His Mustang had big brakes, a road race suspension and a 347 stroker
motor so he was really surprised when he got gapped by the Supra.
This got him interested in Supras.
He soon bought a 1994 Supra which he completely overhauled.
He then did a few car shows for about a year.
He was at a show when he met the transport coordinator of Fast and Furious
and the rest, as they say, was history.
But talking about history, the Supra didn’t start out that great.
In fact it started out pretty average.
It didn’t even start out as a sports car.
Originally it was designed as a pony car.
In 1964 when Ford launched the Mustang, it also launched an entire new
breed of cars.
The pony class were affordable, stylish cars with a sporty or
performance image.
But they weren’t sports cars.
Toyota launched their pony class model, the Celica in 1970.
Celica’s name is derived from the Spanish word for “heavenly”
or “celestial”.
Its symbol was a stylized dragon.
Apparently Kiichiro Toyoda, the founder of Toyota,
was a fan of dragon boat racing.
The 2nd generation was named A40 Celica XX.
But Toyota America didn’t like the name so they renamed it Celica Supra,
meaning “above” or “better”.
Toyota engaged Lotus, a British car manufacturer, to help design
the engine.
They had expertise in building high speed cars.
The addition of 2 cylinders made it a much smoother ride.
But it was still pretty average.
The 1980s model was named A50 Celica Supra but it became known as
the Mk2 in America.
Also average.
Then, by the end of that decade Supra came into its own.
It dropped the Celica and the XX and was simply the Toyota
Supra.
The 1987 Supra Turbo or Mk3 was released with a turbocharged
engine made for the US.
With 230-hp it started to live up to its name.
Then came the Supra Mk4 in 1993 with a brand new inline 6 JZ-series
engine.
This is the model that most people associate with the Supra brand
and the car that starred in Fast and Furious.
The first three generations had engines based on the Toyota Crown and
2000GT engines.
This engine was new but the design of the car
resembled 1960s Toyota 2000GT.
The 2000GT had been built to rival sports cars in Europe.
The new Supra was no longer a sporty grand tourer
but now a pure sports car.
It’s low bonnet line and high-rise optional rear
spoiler were more aerodynamic and built for speed.
The cockpit featured a dashboard inspired by fighter jets.
It could give the 3.6-litre Porsche and Aston Martin DB7 a run for their
money but only cost half as much as these European models.
By the time it became famous in Fast and Furious, production of the Supra
had stopped.
Sales declined despite its excellent performance.
But it was still living its best life on the streets.
After the movie, it’s popularity soared and 2nd hand Supras became expensive to buy.
Toyota had no plans to continue with the Supra.
But there were a lot of die-hard fans who disagreed with this decision.
In 2012, Toyota designers in Newport Beach, California, developed a
concept car called the FT1 that looked like it could be the new Supra.
It didn’t take much for Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, to approve the
project and announce the return of the Supra.
He himself
is
the ultimate Supra fan.
He became a master driver behind the wheel of his third
generation Supra.
In his words, “it’s been 17 years since the last Supra
rolled off the line … and it famously beat that Ferrari in the “Fast and
Furious” … but affection for the Supra is as strong as ever.”
Development of the 5th generation began.
It had a lot to live up to.
Toyota had a big challenge when it came to building it.
Since it was a Supra, tradition demanded that it had a straight
six engine.
But Toyota didn’t build engines like that anymore.
They would have needed a whole new engine design and a whole new engine plant.
This wasn’t financially possible.
So Toyota partnered with BMW.
The result is the 2020 GR Supra race car.
The 3.0-liter, turbocharged I6 makes 335 horsepower.
What’s pretty amazing is that, adjusted for inflation, this model costs less
than it did back in the 1990s.
Of course the old models are even more expensive now.
The ’94 is so popular that sale’s prices have reached over
$100,000.
That’s double what a new 2020 Supra costs.
So we wonder if the new Supra’s will ever be as expensive
as its 30 year old predecessor.
Or whether it will ever be tuned to be as powerful.
Of course, given the Supra’s history it didn’t take long before the
aftermarket responded.
What is unusual is that the German performance car tuner AC Schnitzer officially released
an engine tune for the 2020 Toyota Supra.
It is the first time this company has worked on a Toyota.
But since the Supra is built on BMW technology
it makes sense.
The engine tune increases the horsepower to 400 which
is 65-hp higher than the factory model.
They say that this isn’t close to what the engine is capable
of.
Other tuners agree.
Toyota themselves even fueled the challenge.
They displayed a special 1,000-hp B58 Supra engine at SEMA.
Award-winning engine builder, Stephan Papadakis, of Papadakis Racing got
1,009-HP.
It took a lot of work and three days in the dyno.
What was so amazing was that he was able to use original parts like the piston
rings and head gaskets even though the pressure on them was hugely increased.
He still thinks there is even more potential.
So this should put tuners at ease.
Like the original and highly tunable 2JZ engine, the new B58 has got lots of spare
power.
What do you think?
Let us know in the comments below.
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