A Mark 4 Toyota Supra Turbo sold
at the Barrett-Jackson Auction two years ago for $176,000 dollars. I bought a Supra Turbo 11 years ago for $15,000. Fourth-Generation Supra values in the US have
gone up exponentially in the last decade, but why? And will regular people ever be able to
afford Supras again? Let’s talk about that. (Intro Music) Everyone knows about the legend of
the 4th generation Toyota Supra. It was a Japanese sports car from the
mid-90s that punched well above its weight and it went on to be a huge icon of
car culture, thanks to its immense tuning potential and of course it's casting in
a certain famous street racing movie franchise. But the Supra today plays a very different role
in car culture than it did in the early 2000s. Supras today are in the news for
only one thing, their sale prices. The Barrett Jackson Supra I mentioned was one of a handful of Supras that sold
for over 100,000 dollars. Brand new, the most expensive Supra
retailed for about 50,000 bucks, or about 85 grand in today's money. So how did Supras become more valuable
than their original retail price? Well, let's go back in time to when they weren’t. 2001, the Supra was out of
production in the US market, and was winding down for good in Japan.
Sales were poor in its final years as the car was just too expensive in
a shrinking sports car market. By the end of production, only about
45,000 Supras were made worldwide, with just about 12,000 being
sold in the United States. Then the Fast and Furious hits
theatres and car dudes go nuts. The then-exploding car scene was
finally getting some real recognition, and at the face of it all? The Toyota Supra. So that was it. From then on
the Supra commanded a premium for being the poster boy of tuner car culture. Well, no not really. While many claim that Fast and Furious was
the sole reason for the Supra's success, it was only a piece of the puzzle. In 2001, you could get a low mileage Turbo
Supra in the US for about 25-30,000 dollars. 1997-98 cars commanded a premium
and sold in the $35,000 range. But, at that point, the cars
were only a few years old, so most of them were in pretty
good condition and pretty new. Few of them were modified beyond wheels
and bolt-ons like exhausts and intakes. And from 2001 to about 2005, Supra prices
dipped as depreciation did its work. Owners put more miles on them, and there were
cheaper and cheaper examples on the market, with Non-turbo and automatic cars being even
cheaper than their turbo and manual counterparts. It wasn’t outlandish to find a
non-turbo Supra for 8-10,000 dollars. Now, a lot of you are probably wondering, which versions of the Mk4 Supra
were the most and least valuable. Well, it's not exactly straightforward,
but it comes down to 3 things. First, there's the trim levels. There's: -Turbo and NonTurbo - Turbo is better -Manual and Automatic. - Manual is better -Hardtop and Targa Top - But, this one is a little tricky. Supra guys like me might say
the Hardtop is worth a premium, and while they are rarer, the
Targa was a value-added option. So really, it's hard to say which
may be more valuable to a collector. Second on the list is rarity: The Mk4 Supra came in a variety of colors
across all its trim levels over the years. As production slowed, the 96-98 models
saw the introduction of some very cool low volume colors like Quicksilver, Imperial Jade Mica, Deep Jewel Green, and the unofficial king of the hill Royal Sapphire Pearl, which is often considered the
most coveted Supra to have. But even then, there are just some random color combinations that are
just far more rare than others. For example, if you owned a 1995 Turbo
Supra 6-speed manual with the hardtop, you had one of about 21
cars that existed in the US. And if it was silver? You had one of just 2. Paul Walker, rest his soul, owned a white 95 turbo
6-speed hardtop, and there were only 3 of them. By the way, the least rare
mk4? A 1994 Automatic in Black. The third and final factor that
determines a Mk4's value is the obvious. Mileage and Condition. The less miles and the
cleaner the car, the better. This goes without saying, because generally
collectors generally aren’t looking for your tube-framed 3.4L stroker drag pig
to add to their Concours collection. All that Make sense? Good. As the 2000s wore on, the tuning potential
of these cars really came into full swing, and many of these cars were torn apart
and turned into absolute monsters. You guys have seen them, the fire breathing,
1000hp, highway cruisers and drag strip destroyers that became a staple of street racing videos
and techno-laden montages on streetfire.net. Here’s some of my own home footage that
my older brothers took back in the day. These are the kind of Supras our
friends had. And At the time, this was the coolest thing
that anyone had ever seen. But all these super Supras meant that
unmodified, unmolested versions of these cars became rarer and rarer. And prices
began to reflect that in the late 2000s. By 2008, a 1994 turbo manual car with about
60k miles was fetching about 35,000 dollars. Which is about what they were worth
at the turn of the century, not bad, they were going back up in value. In my research, I found some
poor sap that wanted to trade his for a then-new-to-market Trailblazer SS Uhhh, Yeah, he’s probably not
too happy about that decision. By the way, remember that Supra
I bought for 15,000 dollars? Well, that was in 2010, and that was a turbo
6-speed with a decent amount of mileage on it. I bought it off of an engineer who worked for this very little-known California
car company called Tesla. He thought electric cars were the future, and
so he sold his Supra for a down payment on the revolutionary upcoming new
model called the Model S. Yeah, he probably wasn’t too
happy about that decision either. By 2012, not much had changed. Clean low mile turbo Supras
still fetched about 35-40k, with your average turbo car running about $25,000. Non-turbo cars at about 15k. But in 2013, things started
to take a bit of a turn. Prices across the board started to creep up,
first for turbo cars, then even non-turbo cars. This was catalyzed by the fact that parts
were getting harder and harder to find. At this point, the Supra was
out of production for 15 years, well past the mark of Toyota
discontinuing various replacement parts. Add to that the fact that Getrag, the
transmission supplier for the Supra, wasn’t producing parts for the
legendary V160 6-speed manual, and Supra owners were busy converting horsepower
into destroyed synchros on their highway racecars. This led to standalone
transmissions skyrocketing in price, with new in box V160s costing over 10,000 dollars. And in turn, turbo Supras
that came with the 6-speed manuals began fetching premiums in the market. All this meant that even high mileage cars
were listing for $30,000 or even more. So long as they were turbo and manual, people wanted them, and were willing
to pay above market value for them. 2014 saw the prices further move up, 2015 even more so. And by 2016, dealers and collectors
that were holding onto low mileage examples of Supras began listing them for
prices that nobody had never seen before. 50, 60, even 70,000 dollars for
a mint condition turbo Supra. And the craziest part? They were selling. These headlining sales caused
a tidal wave that took Supra prices across the board to places
many people thought unimaginable. By 2017, collectors started getting a
little more defensive in this extremely bullish Supra market and started
listing cars well into the 80s. They hoped that even if nobody would buy them
at that price now, it was just a matter of time. Through 2018, the average Turbo car with plenty
of miles fetched right around 40,000 dollars, Manual turbos cars with under 60k miles,
those were easily a 50k proposition. But, this was also the year that 1993 JDM
Supras became 25-year legal in the US, and so Supras began to get
imported into the US from Japan. Many people, myself included, thought that
this influx of supply from the Japanese market would dilute the US market, and
bring prices down across the board. But we were wrong. Low mileage JDM cars hit US ports and were
snatched up immediately for 40-50,000 dollars. Sure, they were slightly cheaper
than their USDM counterparts, but JDM sales had almost no
effect on the exploding US market. And then in January 2019, something happened that nobody was prepared for... A supra broke the 6-figure mark. A 7000 mile, 1994 Twin Turbo 6-Speed
Supra sold for $121,000 dollars. The buyer? A Toyota Dealership. A little dubious perhaps, but it didn’t matter. This set the precedent for Supra prices
to get launched into the stratosphere. Just 2 months later, the record was broken
again at an RM Sotheby’s Auction with an 11,000 mile 1994 turbo going for 173,600 dollars. And then 1 month later, a 10,000 mile
1993 turbo sold for 128,000 dollars. Nearly 50,000 dollars LESS than the previous car. So that was it, Supra prices had peaked
in March and were finally on the decline. YES! No. In June of that same year, the now-famous
Barrett-Jackson car made its way across the auction block and set the 176,000
dollar record that still stands today. Now, that car may have been a one-off, a
fluke of an auction that went far higher than it should have, it was a nearly 70,000
mile example, and it wasn’t even totally stock. But at this point, again, it didn’t matter. The market just needed a reason
to erupt, and this was it. In just one year the average
market value of a Supra went up 25%, and low mileage examples were
comfortably in the 70,000 dollar range. My own cousin sold his 1997 Deep Jewel Green, turbo 6-speed on BringATrailer
and got $87,500 for it. How much did HE pay for it you ask? Well, in 2012, he paid 33,000 dollars for it. Yeah. And despite a global pandemic and economic crisis, the Supra train kept just kept chugging
along in 2020, with another 15,000-mile car selling for 126,000, and the
average Supra selling for 60,000+. Even the JDM cars that were being
shipped over here a couple years ago for 40 grand were now selling for $70,000. Or more. Today, at this point in 2021, the Supra
market is the highest it's ever been, representing a nearly 300% increase
over the last decade and a half. And it’s only a matter of time before
another barely-driven Supra surfaces and breaks the $200,000 mark. So then, will regular people, like you
and I, who don't have $100,000 to spend on a 90's Japanese car, ever be
able to afford a Mark 4 Supra? Honestly, I don’t think so. At this point in time, the least
valuable version of a Supra, a Non-Turbo Automatic from Japan, will still cost you about 30,000
dollars depending on condition. Turbo models are double that. And prices look to only be increasing from here. On occasion, a barn find or abandoned project
might come for sale for a decent price, like our $10,000 dollar Supra project, and they’ll cost you an arm and
a leg to get back on the road, with even simple interior parts being
super hard to find and costing a fortune. Although, If you’re okay with
about 80% of the Supra experience, and you aren’t afraid to get
your hands a little dirty, I’ll let you in on a little secret. The Lexus SC300 is a Toyota Supra. The Z30 platform was the basis
for the Mk4 Supra’s platform. Take a look underneath and you’ll notice
that it's pretty much all the same. They even came with a 2JZ! Just not a turbo one, but like I said, if you like
getting your hands dirty, it's not too tough to turn
the SC300 into a Lexus Supra. How much do you have to pay
for this Psuedo-Supra you ask? Well, you can find SC300’s for
well under $10,000 dollars. Good luck finding a Supra for anywhere near that. And now, while it’s easy to say that Supras
aren’t worth the price that they command, and that prices have to come down at some point, the market continues to defy
expectations and trend upwards. Would I buy a Supra at 70, 80, 100,000 dollars? HELL NO! And I feel a bit of sadness saying that. My brothers and I have owned 16
Supras between us over the years. And the vast majority of them have
cost less than a Toyota Camry. They’ve always been the cars that have defined
our personal car culture, our gearhead experience. And while it might seem great that
resale values are always in our favor, these days, we hold onto each
Supra a little bit tighter. Because as we all slowly get
priced out of the market... You never know if this one will be your last. Thanks for watching, guys! I wanna give a big shout-out to Steve
Theodore and the guys at the Supra Registry. Thank you guys on behalf of
all Supra owners everywhere. Like the video, if you learned
something new about Supras. And Subscribe if you wanna
see more gearhead content. I'll see you guys next time!
