What's the point of the new Toyota Supra?
What's the attraction of a new model Toyota Supra when it is (just) a re-badged BMW and owes nothing to Toyota, nor can claim any of the Toyota reliability?
Philip Donegan (Ballina)Jan 2020 Filed under: choosing new car
Expert answer
Hi Philip,
Well, as ever, beauty (and general appreciation or enthusiasm) is in the eye of the beholder. In fact the Supra is very much a Toyota, even though it does share a lot of BMW parts. The whole car was engineered and developed separately by Toyota and it’s chief engineer, Tetsuya Tada. Basically, BMW and Toyota agreed at the start of the project on a common set of parts, and then went entirely their own ways in terms of design and development. It does feel very different to drive compared to the BMW Z4 — sharper (thanks to the stiffer body structure), but also a little softer and more pliant on the road. It’s actually rather lovely. As for reliability? When we first drove the car Tada told us that it had passed all of Toyota’s quality control and reliability checks, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Read our Toyota Supra reviews here
Neil Briscoe - Complete Car Advisor@neilmbriscoe