The Supra and new BMW Z4 will share a straight-six engine and gearbox, but they aren’t near-identical twins like the GT86 and Subaru BRZ. “Each company defined what we wanted and went from there,” explains Tada. “Both cars have completely different suspension and software calibration, for example.”
Tada insists the Supra “will be a pure sports car – practicality and comfort were almost not considered.” Its styling is partly shaped by the demands of GTE racing regulations, but it will still “look sexy”.
So disappointed with the way it turned out from what they were showing as the concept. The concept was bad ass and something that would 100% sell itself just off being different and having a sleek design. I’m sure the new style will look nice, but just not the same head turner as the concept.
we learned the model will have a turbo inline-six, a hybrid variant, and a perfect 50:50 weight balance front to rear, as well as double the body rigidity of the Toyota 86.
Tada also elaborated, saying the four-cylinder Supra will be lighter, with “much better weight distribution” and a sharper-feeling turn-in. Tada also remarked that, for the Supra owners who plan to swap in a 2JZ engine, “please buy the four-cylinder. It will be cheaper.”
I have no idea what to expect, which is what makes this interesting. I hear both that it’s ugly and awesome looking, both limp like the 350z when it came out and yet somehow more of a GTR with supercar potential.
We’ve learned a lot from BMW. The task list of each step in car making they expended on R&D was impressive. I almost started to think if they had an infinite budget funding to the task of design. Each step just much more extensive (and expensive) than what we would normally expend in different areas. Just astonishing. I started to doubt myself if this whole thing can be accomplished in a manner that can profit as a product sold as a Toyota. But then as development proceeded into next phases I was comforted when I saw there were later stages where Toyota would be the exact opposite, and BMW couldn’t believe how extensive some of our quality and efficiency studies were as parts came into shape one by one. We would take every bit down to a fastener or rivet, and put it through our stringent quality control and a dozen other testing, we’d ship thousands of parts back to Japan for analysis. That is normal to us. Each piece we test at our level, they were now the ones surprised.
