By now you must have already surmised that the all-new Toyota Supra is a pretty big deal. Not only is it an earnest return to sports cars for the Japanese automaker, but it also marks the first time they’ve collaborated so closely with a German automaker - in this case, BMW.
During its dynamic debut at the 2018 Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK, the car’s lead engineer was on hand to answer (and selectively not answer) any and most questions about the ‘A90’ and its development goals.
Apart from its powertrain and suspension tune, one of the core objectives of the Supra’s conception was to create a car that shared the structural rigidity of a supercar but offered at a much more attainable price. The result, according to the aforementioned project boss Tetsuya Tada, is a structure and shell that’s as rigid as a Lexus LFA. For the uninitiated, that’s a car that’s mostly hewn from carbon fibre.
Through a combination of interviews, leaked information, and investigative digging from around the world, we already know a fair bit about a car which Toyota still feels justified in wrapping in camouflage. Interestingly, this newest detail about the Supra’s structural stiffness was plucked from an internally-produced interview for Toyota UK.
"It’s actually the same level of rigidity as the Lexus LFA supercar, and it has been achieved without using carbon fiber so we could keep the price point at an affordable level," said Tada-san. For additional reference, the Supra boasts twice the rigidity of the 86, a two-door rear-wheel drive coupe that it co-developed with Subaru. Sensing a pattern here.
We’ve no idea, though it seems likely, if the Supra’s sister car, the Z4, will share these structural attributes or whether these are innovations purely of Toyota’s design. Either way, with the BMW being an open top roadster, there’s little chance of it matching the Toyota in this regard.
Another tidbit garnered from the interview was that Toyota is planning to have the Supra sit at the top of a three tiered pyramid of sports cars within its overall line-up, above the 86. So far, Toyota has not yet revealed what will slot in below the 86. The brand had unveiled the Yaris GRMN hot hatch in 2017, but that was always meant to be a limited run model.
For now at least, the smart money still seems to point to the all-new Corolla hatch as the most likely candidate for a similar performance treatment, elevating it to be a class rival to the Volkswagen Golf GTI, Ford Focus ST, and Renault Megane RS.
It’s also unclear when exactly Toyota will be planning to execute its global rollout of the A90 Supra, but what we do know is that both a BMW-sourced turbocharged 3.0-litre inline-6 and 2.0-litre inline-4 will be offered, mated initially to an 8-speed automatic transmission.
With a powerful straight-6, a very rigid and lightweight body, and (presumably) a finely tuned suspension, the argument that the next Supra could legitimately boast performance to worry that of a Porsche 911 is getting stronger and stronger.
For more on Toyota cars, check out our Showroom.
