The Toyota Supra was one of the most iconic Japanese sports cars ever built for the U.S. In its final generation, the famed Toyota bordered on supercar numbers and appearance, leaving a lasting impression on car nuts everywhere. While the final generation of the Supra is well studied and understood by most novice tuners, only true car nuts and Supra enthusiasts really know about the earlier generations.
You see, the Supra actually dates all the way back to 1979 when Toyota decided it needed something that could give the popular Z-cars a run for their money. With this decision, Toyota took its resident sports coupe, the Celica, stretched it out a little, added in a slightly more powerful engine and called it the Celica Supra.
As time went on, the Supra gained more popularity and Toyota wanted to convert the Celica to a front-wheel-drive vehicle. This brought about the deletion of the “Celica” prefix, leaving just the Supra. This name change was the springboard to success, as the Supra steadily became faster car up until its elimination from the U.S. market in the late-1990s.
Now with rumors circulating about a possible MK V Supra, we figured it is time to present you a full historical review of the U.S.-spec Supra model.
When it comes to the possible Toyota Supra successor, we have heard all kinds of rumors, including the possibility that it may be all-electric. Now, MotorTrend magazine has some different rumors for us: they suggest that the new Supra will be in fact a hybrid sports coupe.
The new Supra may be the result of the new cooperation between Toyota and BMW, and will be built on the Toyota GT86 platform which could also be used for the BMW Z4 successor. While the GT86 uses a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine, the new Supra could use a turbocharged 2.5-liter four-cylinder hybrid engine with an output of about 400 horsepower, while a 3.5-liter V-6 hybrid powertrain is still a possibility.
On the exterior, the new Toyota Supra will be inspired by the FT-HS hybrid concept car unveiled at the 2007 Detroit auto show.
The new Supra is expected to be unveiled late in 2017, and a first concept version may be announced this year at the Tokyo Motor Show.
We have heard all kinds of rumors about the potential of a new Toyota Supra. The latest one, which comes from The Detroit Bureau, is that the new Supra may be an all-electric model.
Apparently, this rumor was started by Tetsuya Tada — chief engineer on the Scion FR-S program – during his interview with Asia One. According to Tada, Toyota will be offering successors for both the Supra and the MR-2, with the most expensive one being the one offered first. However, both will arrive in the next five years.
Tetsuya Tada tried to keep quiet on the powertrains used for the two models, but he did indicate that Toyota "will become more experimental." He pointed out that Toyota may be using Tesla to provide a battery-based drivetrain for a new Supra. In fact, the Japanese company is developing a 3-Series competitor that would make use of the same flexible platform found in the Model S.
We’ll find out if the next Supra is going to be offered with an electric powertrain in the upcoming months, so stay tuned!
For the most part, when you get together a big group of tuners – we mean real tuners, not some dude that throws 500 lbs of plastic and chrome on his ride and calls it a “tuner” car – there are several clear divides. One of the biggest divides is between the Nissan group and the Toyota group. As the No. 2 and 3 import tuner cars, respectively, there is no love lost between them. In real life they respect each other – for the most part – but under the hood, they despise one another.
This is why you never see a Nissan-meets-Toyota kind of monster build. You’ll see domestic engines in Hondas and vice versa, but you never ever see someone take a Nissan car and drop a Toyota powerplant in it. Well, until now!
Steven Mills, in collaboration with ISS Forged and Tech 2 Motorsports, decided, like many others in the world, that the VQ35 engine found in his 350Z was not up to snuff, even with a wide array of mods. So he yanked it out and dropped in a Nissan powerplant. Oh, you would like to know what engine he swapped it out for. You will be surprised, we are sure of it.
Click past the jump to find out about the engine and read our full review.
Tuning firms have always loved customizing Toyota Supra’s from the mid-90’s, and there are literally dozens of Supra’s roaming U.S. streets with in excess of 1,000 horsepower. The silver unit is no exception to that rule, except for the fact that it lives in chilly Sweden.
In a short two and half minute video, producers gathered the insane aforementioned Supra with a group of Supermoto motorcycles and let them loose on some Swedish roads in Västerås, approximately 62 miles from Stockholm.
We’ve seen similar videos on numerous occasions, where high performance sports cars drive and drift around public roads, but this one takes the crown for stupidity. It seems the roads remained open for public use during filming, and drifting a car with as much power as this Supra obviously poses numerous health and safety issues. Combine that with a half a dozen high performance motorcycles, and you seemingly have a recipe for disaster.
Thankfully however, no incidents were reported during filming, but the mysterious appearance of a police car in the closing seconds of the video begs the question as to if the hooligans were fined and reprimanded in any way.
Whatever happened after the director said cut doesn’t really matter, as you can still check out the video above.
People are talking about a successor for the legendary Toyota Supra for quite some time now. That car has been up and down for so many times that we have lost count! And now, new rumors suggest that the car is back in the pipeline and that it could arrive in showrooms by late 2015 for less than $60,000.
The new model, unlikely to carry the Supra name, will take its design inspiration from the 2008 FT-HS concept and will be built on the chassis of the GRMN MRS prototype. It is believed it will adapt an all-wheel-drive system and will generate about 400 HP. This will be possible thanks to a 3.5 liter V6 engine driving the rear wheels combined with in-wheel electric motors for the front ones. The engine will be mated to a CVT lifted from the new Lexus RX, but tuned for higher performance.
If build the new Supra will be the third sports car in Toyota’s line-up next to the GT 86 and the Lexus LF-A.
The Supra was a sports car produced by Toyota from 1979 to 2002. Its demise was due to restrictive emission standards, and it went away quietly into the night. Or did it? Rumors have been suggesting that the Supra name would be making a comeback and the fact that Toyota has just renewed the "Supra" trademark registration that expired back in 2006, leads us to the one logical conclusion: we will soon be able to drive around in a Supra again.
This evidence may all be there, but no one should expect the Supra anytime soon as Toyota is still busy fiddling around with their version of the FT-86. As if trying to outdo Subaru’s FT-86 wasn’t enough - Hey Toyota, good luck with that - Toyota is also planning on a new MR2 rumored to debut in 2013. So the Supra will be anything but chilling on the backburner until about 2015.
The last generation Supra was powered by a turbo engine with an output of 320 HP at 5600 rpm and 315 lbs-ft of torque, but don’t expect the same to happen with the next generation Supra.
UPDATE 12/05/2011: The return of the Supra name has been denied and confirmed by Toyota so many times, it’s equivalent to watching a tennis ball endlessly shooting over the net - back and forth, back and forth. Now, however, that game may finally be coming to a close. During the official debut of the GT 86, Chief Engineer Tetsuya Tada, said there was room for a three-tier sports car line-up in the Toyota range, with one car sitting below the 86 and one above it: "Right now the 86 will be a mid-size sports car. I would like to have one smaller and one larger. One would probably be a Supra follower. Nothing has been decided yet. It would [be] like a Supra successor."
We’ll see how long this story rides before Toyota throws another game into the set.
UPDATE 12/13/2011: MotorTrend has offered new details on the new generation Supra set to be released in 2015. It seems that the car is being tested with a 3.5-liter V-6 hybrid system generating over 400 hp. It has also been rumored that the car will feature a design close to the FT-HS concept revealed at the 2007 Detroit show.
UPDATE 07/03/2012: A few days ago BMW and Toyota signed an agreement for co-developing a new sports car. And now, Automotive News is reporting that the next generation Toyota Supra could be built using the BMW 6-series architecture: "Anything is possible. The key factor is that the products of both companies retain their own individual character, despite jointly developed technologies."
Toyota has been teasing us with the idea of offering a new Supra sports car for quite some time. First it was rumored that we would all see a new model in 2008, but that didn’t happen. Now, the rumor is back with a debut scheduled for sometime in 2015, after Toyota finally offers up the production version of the FT-86 for our greedy consumption.
Being since this is just a rumor, not much is known about the next Supra. Originally, people thought the Supra would be offered with two engine choices: a 5.0 liter V8 engine producing 450 HP and 383 lb-ft of torque and a 3.5 liter V6 engine with 350 HP and 275 lb-ft of torque. Now people are claiming that the future model will actually be a hybrid sports car powered by a V6 engine with an electric motor for a total output of 400 HP and a top speed of more than 170 mph.
We’ll know more about the next Toyota Supra in due time, but for now, a fan of the model decided to render it to give people an idea of what it could look like. His concept car combines the essence of the Supra with design elements from the recently launched FT-86 sports car. The result is something we would really like to see put into production.
Let us know what you think in the comments section below!
Now that the clock has finally run out and just hours away from the first showing of Fast Five - the fifth installment of the Fast and Furious franchise - we felt like it’s the right time to give proper respect to the characters that have made this movie franchise as fun as it has been since the first movie came out in 2001.
And if you think that we’re talking about resident leading men, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, guess again. This list has very little to do with them, or their other co-stars for that matter, but more so about what they were driving during the first four movies. Yes, dear friends. This is a list to honor the Top 10 cars of the Fast and Furious franchise!
Do take note that we compiled this list based on our opinions so if you have any sort of reaction on the cars we chose and the number we gave them, you have the floor in the comments section to let us hear about it.
The Texas Mile Event has come to an end and this year was another one for the record books. We saw the return of some familiar faces and many newcomers to the runway race-track. As you may recall, the entire point of this event is to see how fast your car can go. That may sound simple, but the idea behind much of racing is to beat your competition around a circuit type track. Simply having the fastest car in a straight line race is more closely related to drag racing where such vehicles as Funny Cars and Top Fuel Dragsters hit 200mph in a ¼ mile.
In a place where everything is bigger - Texas, that is - several fans of speed have put together an event on a much longer straight than a ¼ mile. Anyone in a normal car is able to reach their terminal velocity at this event and that is what makes your adrenaline pump. In all honesty, most people don’t hit more than 100mph in their car at any point in time. Number one, it’s illegal and number two, there is usually not enough room to get up to speed and sustain it for any period of time.
This year’s event gave those speed junkies a chance to let their powerful automobiles and motorcycles reach their maximum speed. The highest speed this year was set by a motorcycle doing 278.6mph. To take a full look at the race results continue reading below.
Hit the jump for more details on the Texas Mile Event Recap.