2020 Supra... first thoughts

RicerX

On a serious note, I'll weigh in on this thing. I may have before in another thread, but EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING IT... so here goes part 1 of 2.

Today's sports car revivals/revisions are damned if you do, damned if you don't. The Supra was damned from the start - after all this anticipation, all this buildup, all this unreasonably incessant speculation, they could have released a Bugatti Veyron killer for $100k and you're still going to end up with a large subset of Supra hipsters going "elbows too pointy, would not bang."

The powerplant choice was doomed from the start. You could have shoved in the RCF V8 (which would have been my pick - solid power and Toyota reliability, plus NA - less complexity) and had all the straight-6 fanboys pissed off. So what do they do? Put in a turbo straight-6... piss everyone off anyway.

The highest performing sports/super cars now use dual clutch or high-performing torque converter automatics. The fastest Camaros are 10 speed autos, the GT-R is a dual clutch, the M cars all dropped manuals except for the M4, and the take rates for those that offer manuals are so small the business case for even spending the R&D money to make it an option doesn't make any damn sense on any damn level except the emotional one. Emotions aren't good for business unless the business is emotion. So anyway, what does Toyota do? Offer a Supra, but it's gotta come with an automatic. Manual purists are mad.

There are so many things they could have done/could not have done that there is just no way to even know if reviving the Supra could have ever been a grand slam home run. Even if they remade the 1998 exactly as it was built in 1998, you'd have a subset of people that would be like "dude do something new - it's not competitive".

Gotta give it to Toyota for trying to throw an entry into a segment with the most difficult and stubborn buyers in the world. They release a cheap, lightweight, affordable 2 seater in the GT86, and people are like "has Prius wheels" and "not enough power". So they make a new car without prius wheels and twice the power. "It's not a toyota", "has BMW interior", "not enough power". The next one (if there is one) will have double the power, but cost more. "too expensive" "I can get a used 1989 Ferrari Testarossa for that"

We have no one to blame but ourselves for the state of the sports car segment. And hipsters. Always blame hipsters.

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