it's back
Sometimes comebacks are good: Johnny Cash, the denim jacket, and mixed cocktails. Other times they’re not: Vanilla Ice, the fanny pack, and tater tots. Seriously, people, stop it with the tots.
In that same vein, it is always with some hesitancy that we consider comebacks of automotive nameplates once lost to history: Beetle. Z. Thunderbird. GTO. Giulia. Will it be a proper tribute to past glories while also flinging the brand into the future? Or will it be warmed-over mush, a conspiracy of shallow marketing and built-to-cost engineering with the old badge slapped on the trunk?
It is with such critical eyes that we gaze upon the 2020 Toyota Supra—in its heyday one of the finest feats of Japanese sports car design and performance. This is a rebirth seven years in the making, from when designers first touched pencil to paper to sketch the initial lines of the FT-1 concept. This is a car all but demanded by the automaker’s enthusiast CEO and grandson of the company’s founder. For certain, Toyota is taking this car dead serious. And the results show it.
We spoke with the sports car’s designers, its engineers, and Toyota’s top U.S. product planner. We even had a track and road drive in a pre-production version (as well as in its platform cousin BMW Z4). Then we ventured to Toyota’s U.S. headquarters in Texas for a private photo shoot of the production-spec Supra ahead of its debut at the 2019 Detroit auto show.
Does it live up to its legendary reputation in making a legitimate comeback? Let’s take a deep dive into everything Supra we now know.
Looking back and looking ahead
It’s been two long decades since the last time a Toyota Supra was available in America. In the 1998 model year, the Supra, code-named A80, was offered with a choice of a naturally aspirated or turbocharged cast-iron
