Monday 23rd December 2024

Toyota Supra Twin Turbo (A80) | Spotted

A retiree owner for 26 years and not a modification in sight. There's just one cobra head-shaped caveat...

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Do you ever have a peek at who’s driving when you overtake someone? Usually it's because they’re a) driving incredibly slowly or b) hogging the middle lane, but the cursory glare of disapproval can often reveal some bizarre car-owner combinations. Just a few weeks ago, I was stuck behind a McLaren GT going 40mph on a motorway slip road. When I eventually got past, I noticed a lady of… er… senior years behind (and sitting very close to) the wheel of it. Frustration turned to immediate admiration, and I’ve been wondering about the story behind that car and its driver ever since.

Anyway, the reason I bring that up is because of this A80 Toyota Supra. We all know it as one of the holy grail Japanese sports cars of the '90s, if not of all time, and features one of the most tuneable engines ever conceived. That goes some way to explaining why of the seven fourth-generation Supras that are currently for sale on PH, six of them are modified. This RZ-S has had so much work done that you wonder how much of the original car remains (it does look a bit of a beast, mind). The car we have here though is one of the very few that, according to the ad, has been left completely stock by its retiree owner.

A pensioner driving an old Supra is surely every bit as cool as it sounds, and not as far-fetched as you may think either. It’s easy to forget what a stock A80 looks like because they’re few and far between, but they weren’t the uber-focused sports coupes they’re often portrayed as. Nope, the Supra is more GT leaning in original format, with much of its underpinnings shared with the wafty Toyota Soarer and it came with chunky leather seats, cruise control and air con as standard. Left completely untouched, the A80 Supra’s a big old softie. 

That being said, Toyota didn’t just rebody the Soarer and call it a day. The company took a Gordon Murray-style approach to weight saving, with the aluminium parts, a magnesium-alloy steering wheel and hollow carpet fibres contributing to a 100kg reduction over the A70. Still, it’s the engine that tuners go crazy for. The 3.0-litre ‘2JZ’ in the model we have here is indeed the Twin Turbo version, which in European (UK included) guise developed 330hp if left alone. Tuned, however, it could comfortably develop 1,000hp and there are plenty of videos out there of modders who have extracted as much as 3,000hp from the block - hugely impressive for an engine that’s over 30 years old.

Equally as impressive is the condition of the car we have here. Registered in 1993, it was bought by its previous owner five years later and has remained in their possession ever since. In that time, it’s retained a full service history and has apparently been stored in a dry heated garage for the last 26 years, which should bring extra piece of mind given that Japanese cars tend to wither away at the sign of a salty British road. The only caveat is that it’s an automatic, but manual swapping is possible and there are countless specialists and tuners out there that should be able to sort it for you.

On the plus side, being an auto means you won’t need to part with silly amounts of money to get hold of it. Okay, so £49,990 is hardly cheap, but a like-for-like manual would no doubt carry a considerable premium. That’s money that could go towards a manual conversion, or you could do as the previous owner has and leave it as it for another 26 years. 

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SPECIFICATION |TOYOTA SUPRA TWIN TURBO (A80) 

Engine: 2,997 straight-six, twin-turbocharged
Transmission: four-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive
Power (hp): 330@5,600rpm
Torque (lb ft): 315@4,000rpm
MPG: 25
CO2: N/A
Year registered: 1993
Recorded mileage: 70,000
Price new: £41,999
Yours for: £49,990

See the original advert here

[newbie101]

This is like not decorating a Christmas tree. You can call it unmodified if you want but it’s also missing the point entirely imo.

[Piston-slapper]

He can't have been a pensioner when he first bought it, can he??? Now, that WOULD be impressive!!

[jonsp]

Piston-slapper said:

He can't have been a pensioner when he first bought it, can he??? Now, that WOULD be impressive!!

Possible the old boy bought it as a retirement present to himself in 1998 - he'd be 91 now.

Looks like it's hardly been driven since 2005 and off the road since 2017 - guys declining health presumably.

[Robertb]

Looks like the seats haven’t been cleaned since 1993.

[fantheman80]

Drop that off at Doms garage, Jesse will have it ready for the Race wars in no time

[Jon_S_Rally]

Looks in good condition, though the seats could do with some love. Tricky one for me though, as it's not a car I have any desire to own in standard (or auto) form. I'd want to tinker with it, and it seems a bit of a shame to do that to such an original car.

[WPA]

Very nice but needs a black interior

[cerb4.5lee]

I love these to bits, and it only feels like yesterday when I was reading about them in car magazines when they were new to be honest. I'd like mine in manual flavour though please, however in saying that, I am happy enough with the DCT that is mated to the 3.0 straight 6 twin turbo engine in my F82 M4 though to be fair. So perhaps a slusher isn't such a bad thing really? Plus it is a GT too, so maybe a better fit anyway?

[cerb4.5lee]

WPA said:

Very nice but needs a black interior

All day long. I tried the light interior route in the F13 640d(Ivory white leather), and it seemed like a good idea at the time, plus it looked nice too. However it was a total nightmare to try to keep clean/live with though, not helped because it also had cream carpets and cream car mats as well. So it basically turned black anyway over the winter in fairness!

[s m]

cerb4.5lee said:

I love these to bits, and it only feels like yesterday when I was reading about them in car magazines when they were new to be honest. I'd like mine in manual flavour though please

Remember CAR mag comparing it with a Yellow E36 M3 at the time

Not keen on a slusher - prefer a manual in this

[bern]

Only one thing worse than an auto Supra, an auto NSX.

I'm oot.

[J4CKO]

These look best largely as they came from the factory and white really suit sit, but if spending fifty grand I wouldnt want an old school auto so would either find a manual or cost getting it changed, sure its fine but if its a 50 grand dream purchase I dont want a 30 odd year old dimwitted slusher.

The other stipulation was, if asking 50 grand, would be to run it into a trimmer and get that manky looking drivers seat refinished, its not a nice shade as it is but with all those years of bum wear and trouser residue, no thanks, lets the car down and its so cheap and easy to get them looking like new, would expect it if buying 1500 quids worth of manky old Lexus of FB marketplace, but not on a fifty grand dealer car.

I do think these went a bit mental but it seems to have died down a little along with everything else post Covid.

[BrettMRC]

Has almost no MOT history...

[C5_Steve]

Price seems almost reasonable I'd say for one of these. I agree with everyone else, all the parts that need changing you would anyway wouldn't you. Biggest job is a manual swap, not sure how costly these are now or how easy the parts are still to get but I assume not the biggest issue.

Whilst an R34 will always be the better looking car in my eyes these sound incredible when opened up.

[croyde]

That cockpit looks just like a mid 90s Mustang. SN95.

I like Japanese cars of the 90s but why would this sell for £50k?

[rallye101]

You should see my 84year old dad driving my evo 8 like Miss Daisy....

[ChrisPackit]

Wow! I had exactly this spec of UK Supra with a manual 6 speed in white... just looked like the above car. I think I paid £10k for it around 2001. If only I could have predicted what they're worth these days! I actually never thought they were that good actually, after stepping out of an R33 GTR.

C

[cerb4.5lee]

bern said:

Only one thing worse than an auto Supra, an auto NSX.

I'm oot.

I'm with you, and I can't think of much worse than an auto NSX as well. Auto's and NA engines aren't always a great fit in my experience, and I never thought that the auto suited my E90 330i either, because the engine had hardly any torque for me.

[Baldchap]

A white whale with the wrong gearbox.

[sgtbash]

I paid £4300 for my totally stock auto Twin Turbo Supra in 2014. It was cool to drive, but the performance was OK, the gearbox was awful (3 speed and an over drive), it was a bit floaty around corners - it is a GT car after all.

I certainly wouldn't be paying today's prices!