RE: Toyota Supra prototype: Driven

RE: Toyota Supra prototype: Driven

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Discussion

TwinExit

532 posts

93 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
quotequote all
Oily76 said:
Dunno about the others but the 928 and 348 were both £70k cars in 1993. The Supra was about £40k was it not? Hardly competitors.
Yet the JZA80 Supra offered equal or better performance for less.

Complete opposite case with the new one...




kambites

67,584 posts

222 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
quotequote all
TwinExit said:
It's £75k because it's a Porsche.

If you pay £50k onwards for a Toyota, you want it to beat the Porsche in every respect otherwise it will remain way down the pecking order.
What a sad way to make purchasing decisions. frown

TwinExit

532 posts

93 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
quotequote all
kambites said:
TwinExit said:
It's £75k because it's a Porsche.

If you pay £50k onwards for a Toyota, you want it to beat the Porsche in every respect otherwise it will remain way down the pecking order.
What a sad way to make purchasing decisions. frown
It's "sad" but that's the power of branding, built from sporting success and translated to the street with very fast cars in whichever era they would be.

Lesser brands like Toyota/Nissan/Honda during the 1990's were hampered by the 280 PS agreement, so they come up with creative ways to make their cars competitive (and lie about the rating power anyway) and at a price point which makes them attractive to the European offerings.

If the Supra were not dubbed as the "Supra", this car would be pretty much like the 350/370Z, dwindle into obscurity.

Aluxo

115 posts

72 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
quotequote all
- The JZA80 was a flop. It gained notoriety later.
- The 2JZ GTE was great for its era. Overengineered to bypass the 276bhp gentleman agreement easily in the aftermarket (same applies to the RB26, especially the N1 blocks). Now, with its cast iron block, it weighs too much and there are better options out there nowadays (LS in particular), but agree there will be swaps, just for fun.

I would agree with some who are disappointed that it is no longer rubbing shoulder with the GT-R and that it feels more like a competitor for the Z line now. I find it actually looks like the child of a 370Z and a GT86... Like the front and back, the profile not so much.
At the same time, a GTR is expensive for most people, the Supra will be more affordable and it's probably not a bad thing. It will however turn out like the GT86, everybody crying out for one and nobody really buying it despite good quality. But more competition in the 350bhp/£50,000 range cannot be a bad thing. And a 6cyl in that range is getting rare...

Looking forward to the final product. I would love for it to be better than a 718 just to hear the chorus of cries, like they did after the A110 article hehe

TwinExit

532 posts

93 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
quotequote all
Aluxo said:
- The JZA80 was a flop. It gained notoriety later.
It was a flop to mainstream car press and still would be now. Germany and Italy have them in their pocket.

Notoriety comes from the aftermarket, the Japanese pushed the platform on their midnight club runs, then the US with their inclination to drag race everything.





otolith

56,177 posts

205 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
quotequote all
Car makers don't give a toss what happens to the cars a few owners down - except in as much that something that becomes "scene" may put off new buyers who are a bit sniffy about that kind of thing.

Nerdherder

1,773 posts

98 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
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Love the recipe of the car, but the looks are disgusting. A different front bumper and wheels might fix that to a sufficient degree.

juicy sushi

27 posts

124 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
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Wow, a lot of revisionism, outright lying and silly comments.

The Supra always was in the same price range as the Z, and competed head-to-head in the market across several generations with it. The NSX and R23 GT-R (first since the curtailed 1973 model) dropped at the peak of the Japanese economic bubble. They were all around the same power and performance levels, with the NSX having a bit of a premium price. But the Supra was never an exotic. It was a mainstream halo coupe for a volume manufacturer.

The 4th generation was about level with a contemporary 911 in performance, and that is due to the ridiculous engineering efforts that went into it. Nothing wrong with that. But it isn't 1989 anymore, the yen isn't that far undervalued and management aren't that sympathetic to corporate vanity projects, even if they're the name on the side of the building. The market for sports cars has sadly shrunk, so co-development is necessary. People can complain, but they're not the ones building the things so business realities are gong to be ignored by fans who treat it as escapism.

Which seems to be the entire argument here. "It doesn't have enough power" "It's too small" "It's not a real Supra" "35-40k performance machines are only slightly less powerful than something that's in the bracket just above them". For some, it will never be good enough because it does not offer eleventy million hp for 20 quid. For some, it will never be good enough because it's a Toyota. And for some, it doesn't match their hot-rodded 25-year old car, so it's not good enough. The wheelbase is 3 inches shorter than that of the 4th generation model that everyone says it has to match up to. It's maybe 50kg lighter, too. It has more power, stock than that car, and 25 years worth of material improvements. Is it better than some tuning shop special? I doubt Toyota give a flying fig either way.

Is it competitive in its market segment? Well, everyone who has driven the car is saying they think it might be. A group of internet nobodies are inventing reasons why it isn't competitive with other segments, and saying it's a failure as a result. This seems like a familiar pattern for an internet forum, and a European one in particular. This is also why Europe is not a key market for the Supra and why Toyota don't listen to this sort of criticism.

Ares

11,000 posts

121 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
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TwinExit said:
Ninja59 said:
A supra (or in fact one of the diminishing amount of) RWD only cars is more "technical" it may not be as "quick" in some *dick measuring* traffic light grand prix, but why bother! Last time I drove anything with fake AWD (Haldex and similar systems) it just felt completely corrupted and spoilt an other wise pleasant drive in comparison with RWD. Plus having driven solely (pretty much) RWD for a number of years it makes you appreciate and slow down for poorer conditions much more and think about your actions well before.
And Honda with the original NSX desperately played the "technical" card and waved around their F1/McLaren connection, but it was deemed underpowered and too expensive.

In the states, you had rednecks in their $22k USD GM F-bodies haranguing NSX's all day long, in Europe you just need a E36 M3 4 door saloon to barge past it above 60 mph.

With today's overlapping car segments, the Supra with its 350 horses is exposed towards many cars on many price brackets that would show it the way home.


But unless you 'live your life a quarter mile at a time'...It's not just about power.

russy01

4,693 posts

182 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
quotequote all
Taken far too long. The design looked awesome 5years ago, looks bog standard now.
Im sure a hot version in a dark colour will still look good, but it’s too late to be wow...

Think people are blowing the previous Supra up too much. Whilst a nice car, it certainly wasnt the exotic its being made out to be...



Trevor555

4,457 posts

85 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
quotequote all
They've dragged out the release for too long, I got bored of waiting so bought something else.

My local Toyota garage called today and said I could deposit next month to secure a build but I cannot price or spec the car until January.

Seems like some strange marketing to me, or is this normal?

NITO

1,093 posts

207 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
quotequote all
1500kg/600bhp, 180mph, standard bottom end.



Bulletproof reliablility, tank like build quality, awesome chassis balance, purposeful road presence, angled aircraft style cockpit, well proportioned torque monster that embarrased all sorts of exotica and held its head high in any company. The shriek the engine made had a character of its own. The Supra has a huge cult following and earned massive genuine respect, it was the purist equivalent of the GTR, if they remade it now I’d buy it in a flash!

You can’t flush that pedigree, heritage and legacy down the pan with this new car. I’ve no problem with the car, but it isn’t a Supra or a Supra successor and to call it that is a cheap shot at cashing in on past glory; the market isn’t that fickle and nor are owners of previous Supra.


Trevor555

4,457 posts

85 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
quotequote all
This was the teaser I saw in November 2016





Having waited that long I have to say I thought the car would be a more expensive, hard-core machine.

Trevor555

4,457 posts

85 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
quotequote all


THIS would have been worth the wait.

Edit, and yes, I'm useless with computers

NITO

1,093 posts

207 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
quotequote all
And the concept was a thing of beauty...



Striking from every angle


With a funky interior


Talk about over promise and under deliver...


And this has been wheeled out for what seems like over a decade!! By the time it’s arrived, everyone who was genuinely interested in a ‘Supra’ is sick to death of waiting. Even the Lexus SC was another monumental disappointment, although it at least was closer to a Supra dimensionally than this will ever be. They could have based Supra on that and invested development time honing that.

Toyota have seriously let me down on so many fronts, don’t even get me started on the POS underpowered new Hilux, 2.4 (150bhp vs the old 3.0L 200bhp) when the germans have 250bhp V6’s, another piece of heritage they are destroying with terrible performance, 13.5sec 0-60 vs 7.x for the Germans and 10 sec on the outgoing model.

RIP!!


Darryl247W

564 posts

124 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
quotequote all
1. I barely got to the end of the first page before I got fed up with "re-badged BMW" syndrome. How about waiting until you see and drive the finished article? If you're such a fan of the A80, go and buy one.

2. l'll stick my neck out and say Toyota are toying with us more than camo-vinyl.
Vast intakes in the front bumper with an apparent edge within it; gap on the outer edge of the headlight and a strange profile on the inner edge. I'll wager a different front bumper and other tweeked panels at the full reveal.

3. Toyota, would you stop teasing us with X-Factor 'And the winner is....... (count to 15)......' stylee titillation and show us it when your done with it. Perhaps that's why your Toyota UK Facebook page is 80% filled with "re-badged BMW" syndrome.

4. PH : 7 pictures of the car in motion, yet every one is of the car on opposite lock with smoke pouring off the rear tyres? Yes we know it's RWD. Must you?

Gandahar

9,600 posts

129 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
quotequote all
TwinExit said:
382 HP is still toothless.

600 HP is the norm for 1500+ kg performance cars in the next couple of years.
Exactly, that is why you need an AMG E63S Estatate with so much power your kid in the back will puke over your neck and the dog in the boot will be downloading the flappy jowls in the wind vid on his youtube channel before you even parked it coming back from Jewsons

I pity the Merc AMG GT-R drivers who have less horse power than the E63S.

Suckas,

rolleyes


greenarrow

3,600 posts

118 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
quotequote all
juicy sushi said:
. A group of internet nobodies are inventing reasons why it isn't competitive with other segments, and saying it's a failure as a result. This seems like a familiar pattern for an internet forum, and a European one in particular. This is also why Europe is not a key market for the Supra and why Toyota don't listen to this sort of criticism.
The same experts who presumably felt the new Alpine A110 was also underpowered, overpriced and wouldn't sell....

I like the look of it. Hope it does well. The Japanese makes are on a roll at the moment!

Olivera

7,154 posts

240 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
quotequote all
NITO said:
1500kg/600bhp, 180mph, standard bottom end.

Bulletproof reliablility, tank like build quality, awesome chassis balance, purposeful road presence, angled aircraft style cockpit, well proportioned torque monster that embarrased all sorts of exotica and held its head high in any company.
Jeez, you would have thought the Mk4 Supra was the second coming of christ. One could argue it was a bloated looker, more GT car than sports car and with somewhat stodgy handling. Oh and I've heard of plenty 2JZ grenading at less then 600bhp.

This new model will be a far better handler and faster out of the box.

NITO

1,093 posts

207 months

Wednesday 19th September 2018
quotequote all
Olivera said:
Jeez, you would have thought the Mk4 Supra was the second coming of christ. One could argue it was a bloated looker, more GT car than sports car and with somewhat stodgy handling. Oh and I've heard of plenty 2JZ grenading at less then 600bhp.

This new model will be a far better handler and faster out of the box.
Well I’ve had many colourful and high powered cars and the Supra ranks up there amongst the very best and most memorable, it was simply an excellent honest car, in both tuned and totally stock form. Your 2jz’s that have grenaded themselves were very badly tuned and specced, their reliability was legendary. The handling was also superb, with fantastic chassis balance and the best driving position of any car I’ve had, hardly stodgy.

I certainly hope the new one is better, we’re two and a half decades on from the JZA80, there’s no one who wants to see a new Supra succeed more than me, I hope to be surprised although somehow I expect to be disappointed, I already am purely from a dimensional perspective.



Edited by NITO on Wednesday 19th September 21:11