The Toyota Supra is back! And beyond that, we know... almost nothing of substance. We know it was co-developed with BMW and shares a platform and powertrain with the new Z4, that a racing version will also happen, it won’t have a manual gearbox, and it won’t hit showrooms until 2019. And while we also don’t know price, we have one extra clue today: “not cheap.”
This tidbit comes to us from the Netherlands’ AutoRAI, in an interview with Gerald Killmann, a European VP of R&D at Toyota. While, by Killmann’s own admission, most of the work on the new Supra was done in Japan, he does have a few new bits of information for Supra obsessives. And it includes the fact that the Supra will have a real valley between it and the smaller Toyota 86.
From the story, via Google Translate:
You are also involved in the Toyota Supra. Can you tell us something about this?
“This car was mainly developed in Japan. The European R & D center is not much involved. There will be a race version and if we have shown the production version, we can tell more. “
Clearly, but in what ways do the Toyota Supra and BMW Z4 differ from each other?
“The platform is the same. The same applies to the powertrain. The styling is of course completely different and also the adjustment of the chassis will be very different. The powertrain is not a hybrid, but a petrol engine. It will not be a cheap car. There will be a clear difference between the GT86 and Supra. The GT86 remains the affordable sports car, the Supra becomes the performance model. Whether the production will be limited, we are not going now. “
A few useful things from this: the chassis tuning will be different between this and the Z4, although I’m eager to see how that translates into real-world feel and performance. There’s no hybrid version, which was a rumor discounted early on. And it also confirms the 86 will be sticking around at least a bit longer. (An eventual replacement for the 86 has been basically confirmed by Toyota, though we lack details at the moment, and Subaru’s involvement seems up in the air.)
I don’t think it should surprise anyone that the new Supra “won’t be cheap,” although that to me could mean anything from $50,000 or more to six figures like the Nissan GT-R. It never was a cheap car. Always Toyota’s luxury performance cruiser, the turbo one from the 1990s sold for about $80,000 if you allow for inflation.
We’re still taking bets on what the new one will cost.