Vroom Vroom Vroom! [2JZ Revving] Today, we're talking Supra. And no, we'reÂ
not a little late to the conversation. There's a lot you haven't been told. That thing killed the entire Supra nameplate!  And that thing only exists because BMW has a crush on the Toyota Mirai. Eww! And then there's this BMW M2 CS, which seems like it has nothing to do with the Supra.  But it does — and I'm about to tell you why. The Mk5 Supra is not new. YouÂ
know all about it. It's a BMWÂ Â Z4 with Toyota styling draped over it. ForÂ
2021, it gets some subtle suspension revisions  but also the B58 engine that was already in the Z4. And that means it makes.. [inaudible] 47 more horsepower. Not that it really needed any more horsepower. It was already stupid fast. Alright, let's cut the foreplay and get to it. 4...3...2...1... That thing makes 1000 horsepower and blows flames ...just like every other  Mk4 these days. But this thing, stock out of the box? It's a hell of a g-force generator! Power is present and accounted for! And grip! Balance! Brakes! But there's a problem. And its initials are M2. So you want to play, huh? Oh man. Well, they're evenly matched in the straights. I guess that's what weight will do! Oh my god i cannot get away from him! Alright, no contest in the corners... ...that M2 has so much more grip that he's just on me. I have less lag and an automatic with shorter gears, so I beat him on the way out of the corner. But in the corners? Hmm. Sloppy, Jason! Sloppy. Aw man. He's just on me. That M2 has so much more gip that he's keeping up with me, and he's playing around! This isn't gonna end well. I'm afraid i'm gonna have to call it before there are BMW pieces everywhere. The fact is, the M2 CS outperforms the Supra inÂ
every performance metric. And it does so in a much more usable package. Take your average cell phone and chop it in half. That's the difference in length between those two cars — and yet the M2 manages to fit in a whole back seat big enough for both of your snot-nosed brats — and 40% more cargo room for all your stuff when your significant other kicks you out for spending $85,000 on a stupid little car! You can actually see out of the M2, and you can get in and out of it without concussing yourself —something that is completely  impossible to do in the Supra. And the best part:
it comes with a manual transmission! ...and a warranty. This is also not a new car. The M2 is in its last year, and the CS is its final variant. Now fortified with the M3's 444-horsepower engineÂ
it makes a hellacious noise.  It has carbon-ceramic brakes; carbon-fiber hood and roof; and lightweight seats that probably weigh... four pounds more. With a wheelbase nine inches longer than the Supra's well, you're not sitting on the back axle. So itÂ
doesn't feel like you're driving a skid-steer. This is not just BMW's best car of the moment.
This is BMW! It's a direct descendant of the 2002... ...a tall, dorky, obnoxious little brat of a two-door sedan. It is *not* a sports car. For the record, BMW has never made a great sports car. BMW's "sports cars" are incredibly good... at losing comparison tests. Z3, Z4, Z4, and then Z4 again... And even (I hate to say it) Z1 and Z8. It's because BMW has, with the exception of the M1 supercar, always just deconstructed a sports sedan and thrown its component parts into a sports car *looking* package. That gives you all of the drawbacks of a sports car with none of the advantages. All thorn, no rose. That's a very different thing than building a sports car from the ground up. And that's why this two-seater weighs 1100 pounds more than a Mazda Miata. (Which also seats two.) Look, if your sports car has so much sound-deadening in it that you have to pipe in fake engine noise through the speakers just toÂ
hear the thing run, you've failed the sports car brief. At least in the Z4, I can put the top down and then I can hear that straight six au naturale! And it sounds great — and look, everything is better in a convertible. [Idiot imitating engine noises] Oher than the inherent joys of open-top motoring (and that straight-six) there's no joy here.  Capability is not joy. That's the Zupra's biggest problem (both of them.) They're mechanically identical to cars that have real usability — but cost less. Cars like the 3-series or even the X3. Is it any wonder that the X3 outsells the 3-series, which then outsells the Z4 plus Supra times, like, five? No! The only reason you'd buy a Z4 is because it's a convertible. And the only reason you'd buy a Supra is because ofÂ
how it looks. And that that's a pretty cool story. ...a story that starts here at Toyota's CALTY DesignÂ
Research center — the birthplace of the FT-1, one of the most spectacular concept cars you'll ever see. It was designed by CALTY's president, before it went on to become the Supra. [Jason] Okay, masks off, right?
I feel like i've just taken my bra off. [Background Laughter]
I feel very, very flappy right now. And naked. Where did this design come from? [Kevin Hunter]
We went back and looked at the iconic Supras and we also looked at the 2000 GT, which was oneÂ
of our amazingly beautiful sports cars back in the day. And that car also had an inline-six so it'sÂ
very much in the lineage of Supra DNA. The FT-1 is Supra, unconstrained. ...exactly what this car would have looked like if its design didn't need to be draped onto the hardpoints of a BMW Z4. A hardpoint is a critical engineering spot that cannot be moved — and these are typically set in stone early in the development of a car. The obvious ones are things like where the wheels are, where the engine is, and where the driver sits. But there are literally hundreds of other spots around which the body of the car needs to be draped. A hardpoint is evil to designers. it's what engineering brings to the table. And this could be a hardpoint based on a manufacturing requirement.
It could be a hardpoint based on a safety requirement ...a hard point to keep the car within a certainÂ
size. So we have a number of hardpoints that we  deal with when we design a car. A good example of a hardpoint is the top of the shock tower. This determines the geometry and the amount of travel of the front suspension and it cannot be moved or the whole car needs to be re-engineered. That means: this is where the top of the fender is going to be. [Kevin]
FT-1 is very stretched, it's very fluid, and hasÂ
some elegance and some beauty, I think. We had to, like, get it mashed into a more compressed proportion — and then beyond that, we had  hardpoints that we had to deal with for bumpers, for where the engine was sitting, cowl positions.  It was a huge challenge. One of the most controversial design features of the Supra is this rear fender flare and that's because it goes so far into the door. In fact, if you open the door, you can see where the door is — and then where the flare is tacked on the outside. Same thing over here on the body. This is flare. The body of the car is actually here. Why? Because the latch is the Z4's hardpoint. Let's not forget. This isn't a Toyota with aÂ
BMW-supplied engine. This is a BMW-supplied BMW. With a Toyota badge on it. And BMW will do whatever it wants. Including not giving Toyota its best bits. Want proof? [Supra's pathetic horn honk] If that's not the world's biggest [HONK HONK] from BMW to Toyota, I don't know what is. Compare and contrast the Z4's horn. [Z4's robust horn honk] Told ya. It's a tie... this year... ...now that this thing has the full 382 hp version of this engine. Last year it had 335. Why? Well, it was BMW saying to [honk honk] to Toyota. The other thing I notice straight away, especially on the road, is that the Supra's steering is way better than the Z4's. It has a perfect sense of straight-ahead, it even has some on-center feel, and the effort curve is natural. Like, who knew BMW's chassis development team could actually tune power steering? So long as they have Toyota's engineers telling them what to do. Any difference is shades of gray. It has to be! These are mechanically identical cars. This thing turns in like it weighs nothing! That's because its center of gravity is, like lower than the GT86. Which is not even a Toyota. That's a Subaru. It's easy to criticize Toyota for slapping its badges all over cars that aren't Toyotas, and that's because Toyota was the biggest car company in the world for the majority of the previous twenty years. Of course they have enough money to develop a sports car. But let's talk about what happened the last time they did. Toyota's original Supra started out as something only slightly more than a six-cylinder trim level for the four-cylinder Celica. The price ballooned accordingly, and so did the weight to the point that the Celica Supra was barely quicker than the four-cylinder Celica. The complaints about too heavy and way too expensive stopped when the Mk2 Celica Supra came out. The Supra was still a six-cylinder version of the Celica. It was still too expensive, and it was still too heavy but this time, both the car-buying public and the magazines decided it was worth it. Car and Driver magazine spent a year with this muscular-looking thing and gushed all over it, using words like smitten... Jaguar E-Type, and... "a legend." Well they were right about that. That praise paused when the third generation debuted. This was the first Supra that wasn't just a modified Celica. (The Celica had switched to a front-wheel drive platform.) The rear-wheel drive Supra was finally its very own model. It was still too expensive... ...but it wasn't merely just "too heavy." It gained an outrageous 500 pounds over the last car. That didn't go over well. But by adding a turbocharger to the Supra, Toyota gave it enough power to make up for the weight gain. And it set the stage for the absolutely legendary Mk4 Supra, which shed some pounds thanks to some lightweight material, and came in two strengths: naturally aspirated and twin sequential turbo versions of the world's most famous straight-six: the 2JZ. And the Mk4 Supra also came with a V8! ...in the Lexus SC400. Those two cars shared the same basic platform; the Lexus had a little bit of a longer wheelbase. But the fact that the Mk4 Supra was sold as a Lexus should tell you something about the <ahem> "relentless pursuit of perfection" in its development. And Toyota nailed that perfection from start to finish! The Supra Turbo wasn't just fast — it was supercar fast. It took mid-engine supercars, punched them in the nose, stole their lunch money, and used it... ...to buy Chablis! ...because it was refined, and it was comfortable, and it was well built. It handled well, it was communicative, it did everything well. And that's just what the period reviews of this car said and they didn't even know the best part... ...you could boost this thing to like a thousandÂ
horsepower and it says... ...yeah? More please! Holy sh... I just want to get it straight ahead so I can do that again! I think I'm... <ahem> Underwear! I need new underwear. Whoa, god. I mean look, this car is modified (as they all are) and it is unlike anything that any car company would ever put in production because it's just absurd. But that's part of what makes this car a legend! You talk about a legend? This thing is a LEGEND. It is possibly the biggest legend of all of the legends. And that's because it does this stuff without caring [unintelligible girly-man noises and giggles] Holy actual fff.... I... I... There is only one thing this Mk4 was terrible at. SELLING. It might have been a supercar at a budget price but supercar buyers didn't seem to want a discount. And that left no one wanting the Supra. Its sales numbers were abysmal, peaking at about a tenth of previous generations. Towards the end toyota cut the effective base price by a third... ...and nobody cared. Supra sales were so bad that it killed the business case for a Toyota sports car, dead. and then the money-losing LFA buried it. So can you blame Toyota for not doing another sports car? No. And, by the way, BMW wasn't going to do another Z4 until they came up with an indecent proposal. They called Toyota all, [German Accent]
We will build you a Supra... ...if you let us look under the skirt ofÂ
that beautiful Toyota Mirai! Eww! But BMW needed the hydrogen fuel cell technology for a variant of the X5 that's going into production in 2022 And, by the way, bonus! The additional volume of sales from the Toyota variant would sell enough Z4s to pay for the development of the whole project. For Toyota what's the risk? A bunch of journalists make fun of them for having a BMW in the showroom? There's already a Mazda and a Subaru in there. But the upside for Toyota is clear: Some guy walks in, sees a swoopy Supra in the corner, and says, "man, if they could build that thing, I'll take my YarisÂ
with a sport pack!" ...blissfully unaware that the Yaris is a Mazda and the Supra is a BMW. Key point, though: Toyota sells another car. And that's the goal. The BMW Supra is a far sportier, more dramatic, more interesting, more spectacular-looking, better driving, better-steering, two-seat GT than BMW's own version. And that's a really impressive feat. Is it a true successor to the Mk4 Supra? No — it beats up on sports sedans, not supercars. But this car's existence produced two sports cars that the world would otherwise not have had. And so, the Supra makes the world a better place. ...except of course there's an even better Supra on sale today. Think about the recipe for what makes a Mk4. It has a 3.0-liter straight-six with two turbos on it that can accept like three times factory horsepower and not blow up; a manual transmission; a rear seat; it's a little too heavy; a little too expensive; and appeals to a small number of people. And it puts a supercar-sized smile on your face. Oh, hello, M2. You knew that the successor to the Mk4 Supra was a BMW... ...but it's not the one with the Toyota badge on it. It's that one. Oh yes I did! I did actually say that the BMW M2 makes it better Supra than the Supra itself, And if you think that's an outrageousÂ
statement, I've only just begun! ...and you're not going to hear about it unlessÂ
you subscribe to the Hagerty YouTube channel  and click the notification bell or, you know, follow me on instagram @JasonCammisa or do whatever... But here's the thing: you could be the cool personÂ
who sends out the link to all of your friends,  or you can be the recipient of all the linksÂ
from your other cool friends. It's up to you.
Didn't realize Adam Sandler was a proper wheelman.
In all seriousness, Cammisa might be a little obnoxious but dude clearly truly loves to drive and makes incredibly passionate, thoroughly researched content.
Also love that he calls BMW's what they are. Sporty sedans, not true sports cars. Doesn't mean that's a bad thing, they make some killer cars, but not really true hardcore sports cars.
Props to Hagerty for investing so much in quality free content this year.
I'm here, gents. Any questions, ask away!
As someone who is genuinely not a big fan of BMW and who likes the Supra styling, this video just makes me actually want that M2. A Manual, More Practical, and More Power, yes please. I still stand by that if they offer the supra with a manual it will be a great buy regardless of the underpinnings.
"capability is not joy"
arguably the most important concept in the current performance car landscape.
good stuff from Cammisa, as expected.
Goddamn that whole video was amazing. Thank /u/JasonCammisa and the whole video production team for giving us this fantastic content.
You think people would have been ok with a 80k Supra no matter even if it was made with a Toyota i6?
I’m a simple man. I see Cammisa content. I upvote.
God I hate that he's right. I want a Supra, but I don't have any other options. Paying 85k for a BMW M2 CS just isn't an option.
Great quality and content! As A90 Supra owner, it's kind of unfair to compare a 1000 hp mk4 with a stock mk5. There are now A90 Supras in the 8 seconds in the 1/4 mile, I would like to see a comparison between a highly tuned A90 vs the mk4.
Now, on the M2, yeah, but a minor little detail. Crankhub issues in the S55, it's a time bomb, and, once tuned it will fail for sure. Just like the S54 back in the day, with the bearing issues, all the S series engines always have a desing flaw.
The B58 though, is the most reliable BMW modern engine. I would love to have a mk4, but the prices are absurd at this point. The real flaw of the A90 is the auto only available transmission. To me is like the detuned RSX Type S and the S2000, they didn't wanted the RSX to outperform the S2000. Same here, a manual A90 would sell way better than the M2, that's for sure.