Toyota GR Supra 2020 long-term review

Îïóáëèêîâàííî 22.09.2020 13:32

Why we’re running it: To find out what sort of performance car the GR Supra really is, and whether it has the character to live up to the name

Month 1   -   Specs

Life with a Toyota Supra: Month 1

Welcoming the Supra to the fleet - 9 September 2020

Let’s suppose we played car word association. If I said ‘996 GT2’, you might say ‘hedgerow’. If I said ‘Elise’, you might say ‘head gasket’. And if I said ‘Supra’, you would say?

I’m certain the more mischievous among you would say ‘BMW’, and shortly we’ll address the reasons for that, but until very recently, most of us would probably have said ‘tuner’, or similar. And we can squarely blame the Mk4 A80 Supra for that.

The Supra was born in 1978, when Toyota gave the Celica extra snout to make space for six cylinders. Yet more so than that original car, and more so even than the fact the A70 Supra was at one point an exotic Group A World Rally car, it was the curvaceous A80 Supra of the 1990s and an inventive Japanese domestic aftermarket scene fantastically corrupted with cash that made the name famous. Back then, if it could be imagined, it could be done, and one of the many dubious high-water marks for this feral corner of the car universe occurred not in Japan but in 1999, near Peterborough.

Having shipped his gold-painted ‘Top Secret Co’ Supra and its 930bhp 5.0-litre V12 to Britain, Kazuhiko ‘Smokey’ Nagata nailed 198mph on the A1 M at four in the morning. To nobody’s surprise – not even his, you have to imagine – old Smokey was arrested, tried that very afternoon and deprived of his licence (although astonishingly, no custodial sentence was forthcoming). The press went wild: Max Power readers had a new hero, the tabloids had their ultimate villain and the A80 Supra was core to it all. That flat-out run is still the fastest and most unhinged speed ever recorded on this country’s roads.

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