Expect A Straight-Six But No Manual In The New Toyota Supra

At the Geneva Motor Show, the engineer behind the GT86 and the new Supra seemed to suggest that the latter will be auto only

Matt Robinson

08 Mar 2018

Expect A Straight-Six But No Manual In The New Toyota Supra

Will the Supra have a manual gearbox option, or not? The “will they, won’t they” thing has rumbled on for months, fueled by a seemingly endless stream of conflicting rumours. Now though, we’ve had a clearest indication yet than the Supra - previewed by the GR Racing Concept at the Geneva Motor Show - will indeed be auto only.

Autoblog reports that, speaking at a rountable session at the Geneva show, high-ranking Toyota engineer Tetsuya Tada said that “Supra fans don’t think it’s a huge requirement.” Supra fans as a whole would probably disagree, but Tada-san - the man behind the GT86 - is probably more referring to Supra fans who are actually willing to stump up the cash to buy one, and in that case he’s on to something.

Like it or not, the people actually buying sports cars these days tend to opt for automatics - that’s why Alpine with its relatively limited resources didn’t make a manual. There was only scope to make one transmission choice, and a manual-only direction may well have harmed sales.

It’s not all bad news though, as Tada-san seemingly confirmed that the car would have a straight-six, because a Supra isn’t a Supra without one. That we can all agree on. It should be quite tuneable from the sounds of it, which is also a must if the car is to live up to the legendary name. This inline-six won’t be hooked up to a transaxle gearbox, but the Supra will still manage to have a 50:50 weight distribution.

So, when will we see the production car? Not for a while yet, is the answer. Topgear.com - which is also reporting that the Supra’s straight-six will be a “recalibrated” BMW engine - claims we’ll have to wait until the Detroit Auto Show in January 2019.

Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.

Comments

Insert “death of the manual” and “this aint no supra” comments

It ain’t. Because unlike this, Supra wasn’t ugly.

fair enough.

You spelled “BMW Z4” wrong…

😂😂

Supra is the new NSX and in 10 years when if finally comes out, it’ll be a waste.

Ok I’ll admit this straight up,
I love manuals and call me a fanboy but that’s just my preference.

I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one to feel so, this is why I don’t understeer why manufacturers are moving away from it. In fact the 991.2 GT3 has 55% Manual buyers in North America! Imagine how much more it is in rest of the world. Also this is a sportscar, they should have at least offered an option…

That is an outlier though. Most sportscar sales in America are automatics. That’s just the way things are going. I wish it would be offered with manual too but just because it’s not doesn’t automatically make it a bad car.

Im just here waiting for the 12 year old supra fanboys to that have never driven anything other than their mom’s prius in a parking lot to start raging over the fact that it’s an auto

If you look back at the sports cars that were killed off (Viper is the best example) they were killed off because of the lack of automatic transmission. Times have changed and it’s better to flow along with times rather than fight it. Ferrari and Lamborghini are making SUVs because that’s where the money is now and to keep the sports cars alive, they’re taking risks to keep them still alive and developing them further. If they hadn’t jumped on the bandwagon, they would’ve definitely been in trouble and would’ve seen signs of struggle.