Why Are People So Angry About The New A90 Toyota Supra?

On paper, bringing the famous Supra nameplate back at all is a mountain-moving operation, so why is the web still full of hate for it?
Why Are People So Angry About The New A90 Toyota Supra?

There was a time when you could have put the word Supra on a lawnmower and people would have gone nuts for it. Written in that iconic paint-brush script we’d all recognise a mile away, it was a name that fuelled - or even ignited - our passion for cars.

Things seem to have changed a bit. Go on Twitter today and search for general Supra conversation and there’s a tonne of negativity about the rebirth of what was a stone-cold legend. Surely we should all be ecstatic it’s back and already be counting the days until the first drives, right?

Err, wrong. Sections of the public and media alike have grabbed their pitchforks and flaming torches, and the new Supra is the subject of a witch hunt. The angry mob says it’s not a Toyota; that it’s just a re-bodied BMW Z4 and unworthy of the Supra nameplate, which has been placed on a pedestal so high that only astronauts could have a hope of bringing it back down to earth again.

The reality, of course, is that if Toyota had had to complete the Supra project alone, it never would have got past the drawing board. To even think about competing with the legend of the A80 Supra Toyota knew that the bar had to be set ridiculously high. The A90’s torsional stiffness matches the incredible Lexus LFA’s, after all, despite using only metals rather than carbonfibre.

Why Are People So Angry About The New A90 Toyota Supra?

It’s also, in the words of the great Tetsuya Tada, the A90’s chief engineer, “the last present from Toyota to those who enjoy hearing the pleasing sound of a pure petrol engine at high revs,” so it really does have to be good. To fail here is not just to fail the Supra legacy, but to publicly shame Toyota. The company took more than double the normal development time over the car in order to get it just how it wanted. It’s going to be good.

Look on parts all around the car and you’ll see no end of BMW logos, the furious commenters have said. To that, we say: well, duh – BMW’s obligations within the contract involve supplying all that, and we’ve known as much since the project was announced. The interior is vastly more BMW than Toyota, which is a bit weird, but the Japanese giant has spent four years since last speaking to BMW about the car tweaking and honing it.

Why Are People So Angry About The New A90 Toyota Supra?

In any case, having a BMW chassis tuned by Toyota best sounds like the best of both worlds. Likewise with an engine that’s every bit as ripe for tuning as the 2JZ in the A80. The cheaper 2.0-litre Supra meanwhile is great news for anyone wanting to drop anything else under the hood, with chief engineer Tetsuya Tada instructing them “Please buy the four-cylinder. It will be cheaper,” Road & Track reported last year.

The range-topping 3.0-litre item will be boosted to within an inch of its life by tuners within months of the car going on sale. The aftermarket scene will be a distant but fully-formed echo of the A80’s. There’ll be options to lower it, add new wheels, widen the track, add more aero and so on. What’s not to love?

The number of fake vents has been blasted as well. Sure, on the road car they cheapen the look despite lowering drag versus functional vents (because emissions ratings matter). But here’s the key to Toyota’s thinking: they’re there because they can be made functional when you start to tune it. They provide neat solutions; more places to route induction tubing, mount radiators or draw hot air away, all without needing to budget for new bodywork. Call us nuts, but that’s actually really clever.

What would Toyota have had to do to avoid all the criticism it’s receiving? It would have had to come up with an impossible formula consisting of fully in-house engineering and a brand new engine instead of the unsuitable Lexus sixes. That would have led to spiralling R&D costs and a price to compete with the Porsche 911. That’s not a fight a Supra would win. Performance targets might have been clipped by budgets and the whole thing could have ended up as an under-baked, overpriced travesty.

Why Are People So Angry About The New A90 Toyota Supra?

What we’ve been given is, granted, a BMW-branded product in many areas beneath the skin. Any Supra, though, should be more than the sum of its parts no matter who supplied them. Toyota’s uncommon amount of hard work and dedication will give the A90 a DNA that’s far more in tune with what people expect in continuation of the A80 era. It may hide a few German roundels, but you can bet the new Supra has Toyota blood.

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Comments

F1VEFOUR

I wonder if Toyota is gonna do a A90 M-Package…

01/20/2019 - 21:25 |
8 | 0

Supra Competition

01/21/2019 - 05:55 |
2 | 0
Tadi14

I think people expected the new Supra to be a GTR competitor. Instead, mk5 follows mk4, it’s similarly priced, has a bit more power and weights a bit less. I don’t mind BMW parts, although the fighter plane cockpit as in mk4 would be nice.

01/20/2019 - 21:42 |
0 | 0
Griffin Mackenzie

In reply to by Tadi14

If the supra were to be priced similarly it would be at 80,000 instead of 50,000. That 30k difference really shows

Toyota already had a platform for the supra that would have worked brilliantly. I literally cannot understand why the lc500 wasn’t just given an inline 6 turbo and sold as a supra. Also it’s one of the only Toyota’s in modern times that people say drives like it “has a soul”. Heck even the body shape is the same as the mk 4 supra

01/20/2019 - 23:52 |
4 | 0
Jack Jones (Toyota Prius™ Squad) (Toyota™ Squad)

Toyota Supra BOOST 💪

01/20/2019 - 21:44 |
2 | 2
Lukas Hohenegger

They did a very good job. I am perfectly fine with it apart from one thing. No manual option, I mean, they advertise it as a machine for driving pleasure and I dont even get to choose? It cant be that hard slapping some manual transmission in it. Maybe there will be one on the aftermarket…

01/20/2019 - 22:19 |
16 | 0

I agree. I have no problem with this car other than the lack of a manual transmission.

01/21/2019 - 18:45 |
0 | 0
Elliot.J99

Toyota Supra BOOST 💪

01/20/2019 - 22:35 |
8 | 4
Anonymous

Underpowered? Reasonably fixable
Ugly? Fixable with some new lights/bumpers
Where they lost me (any many) is at automatic.

01/20/2019 - 22:56 |
4 | 8
Chewbacca_buddy (McLaren squad)(VW GTI Clubsport)(McLaren 60

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

380 horsepower is hardly considered underpowered

01/21/2019 - 04:01 |
2 | 2
Fnurpl

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

There’s no market for a manual, not sure how many times this has to be spelled out for people

01/21/2019 - 07:25 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

I oWn A FoReStEr BuT It’S mY MuM’s

01/21/2019 - 00:05 |
0 | 10
128kbps of methe

and on the other hand, everyone would piss on toyota if they re released the a80 because its 2 decades old and needs to be more modern

01/21/2019 - 01:35 |
0 | 0
Topher505

It’s not priced competitively. A decade ago few cars could touch the Supra for the price. Things are different today. A fully optioned Mustang or Camaro can be had for that money. A Corvette could be had for that. You could almost get an M2 or ZL1 for the price of a fully optioned Supra. All of these are proven performers with more power. I just don’t see the Supra being competitive at a base i6 price of 50k.

It’s also far too much BMW. I get that putting a new car out is risky venture and that Toyota being the risk-adverse company it’s become, decided to partner to produce the car. But almost everything about the car is BMW. Engine, transmission, chassis, suspension: all BMW. Most of the interior parts are out of the BMW parts bin. The interior has a very BMW-esque design language. They even use an x-series key fob. I don’t mind the partnership all that much. It just seems like Toyota didn’t so much as lift a finger to make the car their own outside of designing the exterior. It comes off as lazy. And for that, they near BMW prices.

01/21/2019 - 02:09 |
10 | 0
Andrés Cely Herazo

I might not hate it, but I just can’t love it; perhaps it was a clever shot by Toyota by getting the job done with BMW, and for sure there is a good reason to invest such a huge amount of time to develop the whole car. The thing is that the name “Supra” represents much more for the whole car culture than the idea that offers the new A90.

Does not the name Supra represent the idea about “above everything”? I think that if simply Toyota named this car differently it might have been such a success. But sincerely I expected (sorry for what I’m going to say, my fellow petrolhead friends) an overpowered hybrid casted with all the charisma that the japanese culture can offer aimed to kill the supremacy that the GTR and the NSX have gained.

I don’t pretend to judge what Toyota made, but definitely the Supra name belongs to a legend… Now I can only expect showrooms filled with 2.0L Supras trying to fulfill rich kids’ wet dreams…

01/21/2019 - 03:25 |
10 | 0

The name developed from the highest equipped and most powerful Celica. So it was the above everything Celica.

Representing a whole car culture? Wait a second. All Japanese turbochared cars with the Gentlemen’s agreement from that era represent this culture.
What the Supra made special are the enormous powergains with “simple” modifications.
In other words: If the car was never modified it would be a heavy GT car with good brakes.
You might hold a little bit to tight onto it’s fanbase.

01/21/2019 - 07:21 |
2 | 0