2024 Toyota Supra Review: Is the Manual a Game-Changer?

[Music] the fifth generation Toyota Supra had an impossible task to live up to the bar the fourth generation set the markv is an icon The Fast and Furious car with its wide-eyed headlights perfectly smooth body and ever famous 2JZ engine it was the ultimate tuner car and it became universally loved among car enthusiasts the new Supra hasn't quite hit that bar in fact if you ask a lot of people they'll joke that it's just a BMW I think that's an oversimplification it's unfair even this is the 2024 Toyota gr Supra 45th anniversary edition and I'm alannis King let's go for a drive and stick around for the end of this video to get this supra's full report [Music] card but before we talk about how cool this Supra looks don't I look cool too this is all HomeField apparel I have my vintage style Jeff Gordon shirt my vintage style Jeff Gordon jacket and I feel so amazing and every single time I go out in public with this jacket on so many people tell me how much they love it this is HomeField apparel and they are a wonderful partner for this channel they have all kinds of vintage style Collegiate merch motor Sports merch and everything else you can imagine and if you want to support this Channel and HomeField you can go to their website and pick out whatever you want and use code Alanis 24 for 15% off your order there's all kinds of Hendrick Motorsports stuff on there right now and there will be a lot more Motorsports stuff as the year goes on so go check it out enjoy and if you want to buy anything C atanta 24 really helps me out the Toyota Supra Story begins with another car called the Toyota Celica Toyota launched the Celica in 1970 as a response to the pony car movement among American automakers and it was meant to blend sportiness and practicality not sacrifice practicality for sportiness in 1979 Toyota added the Celica Supra to its lineup a six-cylinder version of the existing Celica which the super would be for two generations before becoming its own model the first version of the car had a 2.6 L nline 6 engine that made 110 horsepower car and driver took the original Celica Supra from 0 to 60 mph in 11.2 seconds which it called acceptable for the time but nothing to Marvel at the second generation Celica Supra arrived for 1982 with a poiner body style horsepower jumped to 145 for this car then 200 for the third generation that began in 1986 the third generation marked the first time the Supra was on its own the Celica went front- wheeel Drive the Supra stayed rear wheeel drive and they became two different cars this Supra got an added turbo option to make 230 horsepower then in 1993 came came the halo car the Mark 4 the standard car made 220 horsepower and the Turbo went to 320 rocketing the car from 0 to 60 mph in 4.6 seconds in car and drivers testing that was less than half the original car's time super sales slowed in America throughout the 9s and in 1998 Toyota stopped selling the Supra in the United States that was just three years before its starring role in The Fast and the Furious the film that cemented the car as an automotive Legend the Supra spent nearly two decades off of the car market and during that time its Legend status skyrocketed in 2019 a 1994 Super went up on bring a trailer and it auctioned for $121,000 and despite the car's Legend status we were all shocked at this price it felt ridiculous and now it's just normal soon after that breakthrough six figure Supra auction Toyota brought the car back for the 2020 model year but this time it was a catch it wasn't really a Toyota before I open this Hood I noticed there's no external hood release and then once I do there are a bunch of little letters and L logos in here BMW BMW BMW BMW and then there's a Toyota for good measure the fifth gen Supra is sourced from the BMW Z4 and there's a really good reason for that Toyota wanted to bring the car back with an inline 6 engine meaning it had two choices either make its own or write BMW check to use it's technology that's really the only correct business move here Toyota knew the Supra wouldn't sell at a high enough volume to justify The Cost Plus any new inline six from Toyota would just compete with Toyota's own legacy imagine spending all of that time and money on a new engine and risking the chance that car enthusiasts still like the 2JZ better that means this car has a 3 l twin scroll turbo Eng Engine with 382 horsepower and 368 lb feet of torque all that power goes through a six-speed manual transmission to the rear wheels and if you want something a little less expensive there are also four cylinder Supras now for you ask yes that is a BMW manual but it has these lovely Gates and achiness to it and Toyota told rodent track it spent a lot of time dialing in that shifter so that it feels different than anything BMW currently offers despite the fact that to the extent that it can this Supra looks and feels like its own car people immediately joked that it was a BMW they still do I hear it all the time and I don't think it's entirely Fair because sure on one hand you could say the entire point of a Toyota is its reliability and putting a BMW unit in here just makes people Qui question that reliability on the other hand Toyota didn't have a new inline 6 engine fit for a car like this and if they wanted to make one themselves it would have cost a ton of money in research and development so instead Toyota wrote a smaller check to BMW to borrow theirs and that means that this car is much less expensive than it would have been if Toyota built this from scratch another perceived misstep with the fifth gen super launch was the fact that it came without a trait its core audience loves a manual transmission early fifth gen Supras were automatic only and reviewers and enthusiasts alike criticized the car for its lack of personality I drove an early Supra in bright yellow automatic obviously and it was fine no worse no better its Sleek low body style made me feel like I was in a moving coffin blanketed into Darkness aside from a few windows that were half the size I wanted them to be the roof pillars were so thick that anytime I backed out of a parking spot I had to rely entirely on a backup camera and the hood was the size of California just like backing out pulling into a parking spot was merely a guess in My Week with the automatic Supra I didn't go out of my way to get extra drive time in it like I would with a Lexus LC 500 or a Mazda Miata it was enjoyable enough on winding roads and it had sufficient power but it didn't beckon me to come out and drive it all day the best part of the car I thought was the way it looked Toyota Supra looks like a toy and that's the whole point it's also a compliment this is a car that dares to be childishly cool like something you would see on a poster in a kid's bedroom few cars can achieve that and most of them are Ferraris or Lamborghinis for a Toyota order to reach that height is impressive now you can have some complaints these looks are not for everybody the car is covered in fake vents that are meant to look aggressive but really just look kind of plasticky the visibility is awful due to these thick pillars and the roof line is so low that when you get in sometimes you're just going to pop yourself in the head but the car looks cool and deep down I think we all know it these headlights are just daring enough in shape the big nose is really cool for other people and the hood folds down into the fenders so you don't have a big U shape interrupting the lines of the body when you move to the back of the car you get to some of my favorite tail lights out there which look like frozen rose petals that just stick out from the back and this Wing although it's kind of Wiggly it looks sporty this is a 45th anniversary edition Supra and it comes in a special paint color called meon Blast meon means orange like the fruit in Japanese and even though this car looks red in photos I promise you it's orange the 45th anniversary Supra is based on the supra's premium trim it's limited to 900 US units and is available in either orange or white including included in the $65,000 price tag are the big Wing matte black 19-in wheels the big black graphic on the side orange strut Tower braces and more if you thought the orange was meant to hint The Fast and Furious car you'd be right if you want a hint at my next segment it involves measuring this trunk in Alanis units now this trunk is going to be difficult because although it looks big we have the cargo cover which makes everything much harder so let's see how it goes this is the awkward part extremely awkward part all right I think we're going to go feet in oh I don't know if about this one I don't know if I'm flexible enough for this one almost one Atlantis my head has to stay out I think welcome inside the actual passenger compartment of the Toyota Supra which is just not as well done as the exterior you get inside here and you expect it to be so refined and perfect and nice and instead you're in a sea of black and a sea of plastic really the only thing that breaks up the monotonous black inside this car are the little silver accents we have this little strip that goes across our dashboard we have a couple couple of silver Accents in the seats and we have carbon fiber pattern here in around the center console area aside from that there's not a lot going on in here and what is going on is just not very pretty it's all dull black the steering wheel I look at the center part of the steering wheel and it's just so plain it's not good looking the door cards feel like an absolute afterthought which they shouldn't in a $65,000 car and it just it's not nearly as nice in here as it could be you could really Elevate this interior with some orange accents some any color accents at all slightly better materials it wouldn't take much to make this interior so much better some good things about this interior though are the fact that we have tactile buttons on the dashboard it is absolutely wonderful to be able to reach down and crank a volume knob or change your temperature with a knob or just press any button you want to the seats are very very comfortable I really enjoy sitting in them they keep you in the seat very well and it just feels ergonomic it feels like I'm sitting in my ergonomic office chair and the infotainment screen if you care about infotainment outside of Apple carplay or Android auto is very easy to work one thing that is also not so great about this interior is that there is a lack of hidden storage right in here all this is transmission and all that good stuff so you don't have any big center console where you can hide stuff you have a lot of storage in the back but all of that is visible to your passenger so if you want to look neat and tidy it's kind of hard to do that in here unless you just don't bring anything with you a thing I really do like is the wireless charger up front it holds your phone in very well you just tuck it in there and it stays my only catch with the wireless charger and it's hold is the fact that phones just keep getting bigger maybe we've reached Peak phone size maybe we haven't I don't know but if phones change size over the next however many years or decades they may not fit in this really convenient holder we have right now welcome inside it's time to drive the Toyota gr Supra and let me tell you this thing can accelerate th this car has power the 382 horsepower with the 3400 lb curb weight works well you accelerate very quickly in this car it it has plenty of power never talk down on that 382 horsepower in this car I know it doesn't sound like much these days you can get cars with 1,000 horsepower you can get cars with all kinds of stuff but 382 is enough for this car it feels sporty and capable without feeling like too much you know I really do feel like these days it's just a horsepower War right it's how big of a number can we put on the spec sheet how much horsepower can we have Without Really the thought of what is the joy behind that horsepower right because at some point the car accelerates so quickly that on the road there's just not a lot to it it it's fun once or twice but it's a party trick right and then there's horsepower that's livable there's horsepower that's fun to accelerate with and it feels like something every time you do it and I think that is overlooked in the horsepower Wars oh oh my goodness it just the power is really enjoyable in this car it will pin you back against the seat without just being like too much right but I'm out here on the good roads and I'm driving and it's fun but it's also a little muted in this car and I think that's due to the fact that this is an extremely comfortable car I took it out on the highway the other day and I pulled onto the highway and I looked down and I was going 87 and I thought I was going 60 and me I'm not someone who speeds right I go the speed limit and I look down and I thought I was going under the speed limit and I was going almost 90 because this car is extremely comfortable at high speeds and that is great for Grand Touring and going places and it's great when you're just on the highway in a boredom situation but when you're out on the good roads the car does feel almost too capable in a lot of ways because you're trying to get it just a little bit crazy right you're trying to feel some over steer you're trying to feel some under steer and you really just don't the car is gripped up when you point the wheel it goes exactly that way it doesn't over steer it doesn't under steer you it's hard to get it out of sorts I mean it's just pointed exactly where I want to go right now and it does exactly what I'm telling it to do and that does take a little bit away from the Driving Experience because it's too good the car is so capable that you're missing something here you know I was talking earlier to my husband and we were talking about how in our Mazda speed Miata from 2004 being out here going these speed right now would feel sketchy and in so many modern cars this car included this is not sketchy there's nothing sketchy about this it does exactly what you want it to do it never gets out of sorts and that's a great thing and this car is enjoyable on the racetrack I've driven this car on the racetrack in its automatic form and it is very enjoyable on the racetrack because it's a super capable car and you take it on the track and it's fun but on normal roads if you're not trying to get in trouble it's too well sorted it's too well sorted oh that is so nice you can just hear the little turbo sound the little spool the I love that sound people will complain about turbo lag they'll complain about all that I love that sound it's so fun to hear a turbo spooling up and you know we talked earlier about how Toyota told rod and track they really worked hard to make this shifter feel like their own and feel like the supra's own they wanted it to feel different and you know I do love how this shifter feels it it is so nachy but not difficult to put in place it's just notchy in a way that makes you feel like you did something the throws are just like click click click click click click it's a nice shifter feel and honestly I would say that's probably one of my favorite parts of driving this I really like the acceleration and I really like the shifter feel everything else is a little muted it's a little too comfortable of a car are but the shifter feel is wonderful you know each of the pedals has that nice little spring in it that new car spring you put the clutch down and it just m it's got that springiness to it it's really really nice and I tell you every time you shift it feels like you've done something because it notches once and notches twice and goes into place oh man and that's really enjoyable to drive around town with right now I'm out on the good roads and obviously the car and it's fun is obscured by how comfortable it is and that's unfortunate because comfortable cars shouldn't have to sacrifice that they do right they do the wind noise is not super bad there's a little bit of wind noise but overall I just feel so removed from the road you know I wouldn't call the suspension super stiff you can feel the road below you but it's not like a Porsche 911 GT3 you get in a 911 GT3 and you drive through a neighborhood and you're like like that's how stiff that car is this car to me is very comfortably stiff right we're not totally removed from the road but also we're not just jostling with it at every chance right I think the new Supra gets looked over too much people just go eh it's a BMW it's not a Toyota it's not the thing I fell in love with on Fast and Furious and they just discount it but the Supra is a very good car it's a very comfortable car it's fun to drive overall for the price you get incredible looks and I don't think you should discount that just because the engine is borrowed from someone else now that we've driven the Supra it's time to break down this car welcome to atlantis's report card we start with the exterior which to me gets an a this car looks super cool the interior gets a c it is very black and very plasticky and very very boring in there the performance it's a B+ this car has 382 horsepower with a 3400 lb curb weight which is pretty good and it feels good to drive the problem is when you get done driving it or when you're taking it to the good roads visibility is so bad and that does interfere with your enjoyment of the car value is a b this car is pricey but for how cool it looks I understand the price on the other side of that there are more affordable sports cars that you could go for would I take this car on a road trip I would it's comfortable it's nice it's fun to drive I would take it anywhere and overall I give this car a b it looks cool it feels great but you get inside and the interior is a big let down kind of like a lot of other Toyota products but you know what you're getting and you're getting a be the fifth generation Supra had a huge Legacy to fill and it was always going to be an uphill battle car enthusiasts are picky no matter how good your BMW engine is or how much money it saves potential super buyers people will still joke that it's a BMW but I think these jokes Overlook what the Supra does best it offers us a modern and attainable halo car it's a vehicle you'd set as your desktop background or hang on a poster in your room it's a car you'd go to the local drugstore to find a diecast model of it's a car that in 20 years won't just be another example of 2020s styling it'll stick out in Automotive History because it sticks out today and as of now you can buy it in a manual that's a win for all of us the new Supra is a car that makes people look it makes people talk and if you want to remain a legend the first step is to stay in the [Music] conversation

Channel: Alanis King

Views: 20,718

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Id: 2mESbGKkPWs

Length: 24min 38sec (1478 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 02 2024