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Toyota GR Supra review: enthusiasts demanded a manual gearbox – but at what cost

Toyota GR Supra review: enthusiasts demanded a manual gearbox yet it’s slower and uses more fuel
Toyota GR Supra review: enthusiasts demanded a manual gearbox yet it’s slower and uses more fuel

I was thinking of the Porsche 928 the other day. The large, V8 two-plus-two coupé was introduced in 1977 and was intended to replace the long-lived 911. Voted the Car of the Year for 1978, it was pretty special all the way from its pop-up headlights to a special rear axle developed at Porsche’s technical centre at Weissach, which induced the rear wheels to toe in and which became a case study for young motor engineers.

What a machine, but in the final analysis, as Motor magazine put it in its first road test: “While the 928 undoubtedly is a most desirable car even by the exacting standards of its class, it isn’t, after all, The Ultimate.” In 1995, 18 years after its introduction but with only 61,000 built, Porsche stopped production.

It made me think about whether cars become great despite their shortcomings or whether it’s because of them, and that true automotive greatness is somehow less than the sum of parts, body shape and dynamic behaviour.

The Toyota GR Supra on the road
The Toyota GR Supra on the road

Cue the Toyota GR Supra, which since 2019 has headed in a similar direction of desirable but not ultimate. Certainly, the two-plus-two coupé’s gestation wasn’t the simplest.

Combining two sets of committed and talented engineers from BMW and Toyota was never going to be a match made in heaven. Red lines everywhere, engineers not talking to each other, this Japanese/German project was bashed through and to be fair the results were pretty good.

Toyota used BMW’s 335bhp/369lb ft, B58 3.0-litre six-cylinder twin cam, twin-scroll turbo engine and eight-speed ZF automatic gearbox with an electronically controlled rear differential. It also provided the chassis and Toyota the hard-top bodywork, which from the look of it couldn’t be anything but Japanese in origin.

The interior was a weird mix of BMW and Toyota, but mostly BMW. The centre console and the iDrive capstan controller were straight out of the BMW parts bin as was the gear lever. Equipment levels, as you’d expect with an expensive £50,000-plus price, were pretty good, as was safety. In 2019, the year’s allocation of 300 models was already spoken for and to an extent that’s been the same since.

The flash interior was a weird mix of BMW and Toyota, but mostly BMW
The flash interior was a weird mix of BMW and Toyota, but mostly BMW

Cars like this aren’t expected to bolster sales figures or profit margins, they’re made to create a feelgood factor for the brand and so it proves with the GR Supra. GR is short for Gazoo Racing, Toyota’s works race team in a variety of motorsport disciplines as well the name of three quite special sporting models: the GR Yaris, the GR86 and this, the GR Supra. It’s also used as a trim line in the Japanese giant’s more mass-produced models.

Since GR is the brainchild of Toyota chief executive Akio Toyoda, few in the company get to question the value of such a project. Certainly, it gives Toyota’s chief a unique and very personal link with a small, loyal band of customers and fans, a bit like that between some Tesla owners and Elon Musk, some Apple fans and Steve Jobs, but not (despite desperate attempts to build such a culture) between Volkswagen boss Herbert Diess and VW owners.

The tan and black interior makes for a striking display
The tan and black interior makes for a striking display

Quite what the worth of this relationship is to the average Toyota owner is difficult to fathom, but out on planet social media GR fans have called for a manual-gearbox version of the GR Supra and that’s what has been delivered.

It’s a unique six-speed manual unit created out of ZF parts and comes with a unique gear lever and a couple of electronic whizzbangs which allow more wheelspin out of hairpins, an anti-roll program designed to prevent the snap reaction of the car on a racing circuit when the stability controls step in, and a drifting mode which allows freer control of the throttle.

If you’re considering a big coupé to transport you to the golf club and the south of France, this is probably not for you, but these modifications, plus stripping out 38.3kg should make it a bit more adjustable on a circuit. These chassis modifications will be incorporated in the standard 2.0-litre four-cylinder automatic and the 3.0-litre auto Supras.

Lined up in echelon on the pitlane of the Monteblanco circuit in Spain, the impression is of a big powerful, old-school GT just as the previous Supra was. The BMW engine idles purposefully and the new wheels look pretty good. Step in and the first impression is the deletion of the infernal safety-locked gear lever from the ZF auto.

The Supra is as balanced and adjustable, albeit at lower speeds and loadings
The Supra is as balanced and adjustable, albeit at lower speeds and loadings

Slot first and point the nose circuitwards and the 4,379mm long coupé charges down the pit lane and joins the same circuit on which the Ferrari 296 GTB was launched a couple of months ago. Clearly very different cars (and different prices), and the front-engined Toyota is neither as fast nor as agile, but it is no slouch, either.

You need to be more deliberate and early turning the nose into corners, and have a care when accelerating past the apex as the steering is starting to unwind. Yet in its way the Supra is as balanced and adjustable, albeit at lower speeds and loadings.

As for the gearbox, well they’ve done a pretty good job, with a notchy but open gate which demands deliberate movements between ratios, but is evenly weighted with no sign of baulking.

Six speeds puts a great deal of pressure on the gear lever springing as you need it to return to the third/fourth plane, but allow natural movements from there into the first/second and fifth/sixth planes. The bitsa ZF change works well in this regard.

Prices start at £49,495 for the 2.0-litre auto, £53,495 for the manual 3.0-litre
Prices start at £49,495 for the 2.0-litre auto, £53,495 for the manual 3.0-litre

Together with some new colours, this is pretty much a range refresh with the addition of a manual ’box for the 3.0-litre.

Prices start at £49,495 for the 2.0-litre auto, £53,495 for the manual 3.0-litre, with the Pro version costing £55,995, and £57,495 for the 3.0-litre automatic. Just to be clear, the manual version isn’t as fast from 0-62mph (4.6sec against the auto’s 4.3sec), has the same electronically limited 155mph top speed, produces more CO2 (198.3g/km against the auto’s 188g/km) which takes the car into a different VED class (£1,420 for the first year against the auto’s £945) and, while we haven’t got definitive figures, the manual will also use more fuel.

For some that’s a small price to pay for the extra interaction they have with the car and the driving satisfaction that a manual gearbox undoubtedly brings to the experience. But, like the Porsche 928, isn’t the market for these big and powerful coupés relatively small, perilously close to lossmaking and predominantly intended for luxurious high-speed peregrination, which ZF’s accomplished auto is more than capable of delivering?

Outside of a few online fans, I just can’t see typical Supra owners signing up to #savethemanual any time soon.


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