Over 500Nm and 1,500kg has it’s benefits.
The A90 Toyota Supra had its first public outing at the 2018 Goodwood Festival of Speed, otherwise referred to as a ‘dynamic debut’, whatever that means. Unfortunately, the Japanese automaker isn't quite ready to show their newest car off in full yet, meaning it was still covered in a semi-distracting pattern camo wrap.
Equally, folks peering at the parked Supra’s interior were also disappointed to find that it was all but concealed behind some drab and featureless panels with nothing but a few critical switchgear and gear lever being fully visible.
Luckily, Autocar managed to exchange a few words with the Supra’s lead engineer, Tetsuya Tada, on the sidelines at Goodwood, where the man had been a little more forthcoming than his employers with some of the yet unknown details of the upcoming Supra.
We knew early on that the car would be co-developed alongside the new BMW Z4 roadster and would therefore be built on the same platform and, interestingly, be powered by a German-sourced turbocharged six-cylinder engine likely to be the B58 unit from the Munich stable. While this gave us a ballpark figure on performance, nothing has been confirmed.
Tada-san knew that revealing specifics would mean a talking to from the Toyota higher-ups, but told the UK publication but said that its output will be “on a par with that which we have with the F-Series from Lexus. But you can imagine from seeing it that the car is light and compact – its wheelbase is even shorter than the GT86’s. It’s around 200-300kg lighter than the F-Series.
These couple of sentences prove to be quite crucial and speaks volumes about Toyota’s intentions with the Supra without technically disclosing much. For one, it alludes to it sharing similar engine outputs with the Lexus RC-F, which produces 350kW and 530Nm from its 5.0-litre naturally aspirated V8.
While the 3.0-litre BMW-sourced turbo-6 will likely not emerge in the Supra with a tune that can match the RC-F on out-and-out power, it will be able to swing just as hard when it comes to peak torque. And if the Japanese leaks are to be believed, this points to the A90 having 250kW and around 500Nm, all while weighing within the region of 1,500kg.
With those numbers in mind, as well as forthcoming Supra’s tentative 3.8 second 0-100km/h sprint time, it could have the firepower and dynamics to worry even the iconic Porsche 911 - and, by extension, cars like the Jaguar F-Type (V6) and the Mercedes-AMG C 43 Coupe.
The other details that we do already know about the next Supra continue to paint a picture of a formidable everyday sports car. For example, it will feature a perfect 50:50 weight distribution, a standard Torsen limited slip differential, and have its longitudinally-mounted engine connected to the rear wheels via an 8-speed ZF automatic transmission.
After the car makes its initial debut in production guise in early 2019, Toyota’s newly minted performance arm, GRMN, plans to tinker with multiple variants of the Supra, including a more hardcore version that’s expected to shed even more weight, ride on firmer race-tuned suspension, and utilise a 6-speed manual transmission.
Other avenues Toyota could explore with the Supra include one with much higher outputs and straight line performance thanks to a powerful electric motor, effectively making it the first Toyota-branded hybrid sports car.
For more on Toyota cars, check out our Showroom.
