Toyota Supra

HELLO

£54,340 OTR/£55,050 as tested/£504pcm

WHY IT’S HERE

Is the new Supra a better daily than a Porsche Cayman?

DRIVER

Rowan Horncastle

EVERYONE BOW AND SAY KONNICHIWA TO OUR LATEST TG GARAGE recruit. Or should that be Guten Tag? It can only be the new Supra. A car consumed by a maelstrom of scrutiny because of its dual citizenship. And one of the main reasons we want to run one long-term.

In case you didn’t know, the new A90 Supra shares platform, running gear, engine, gearbox and large chunks of the interior with the BMW Z4. Collaboration between companies isn’t anything new, especially for Toyota – which came out the better for the GT86/Subaru BRZ project and went threesies with Peugeot and Citroen for the Aygo/108/C1 – but this one struck a nerve because it’s the Supra, the quintessential Japanese car for a generation weaned on the Fast & Furious franchise.

Being a JDM fanboy I had my reservations, but decided to wind my neck in and approach the Supra with a fresh perspective. Let’s be frank, without the controversial collaboration, this striking RWD, straight-six coupe wouldn’t exist. This dying breed is being replaced with more generic, less characterful ‘mobility solutions’, so bring it on, BMW bits and all.

What is GY20 XCG? A top of the line Pro spec, that’s what. So it’s got BMW’s rorty (and highly tuneable) 335bhp B58 turbocharged inline-six attached to ZF’s ubiquitous eight-speed auto. Being top spec, every option is pretty much pre-ticked. In fact, the only addition is that deep, slightly mesmerising blue paint (£710). I wasn’t too sure how it’d come out in natural light, it’s an intriguing colour that masks some of the Supra’s fussy lines and details to give it a more voluptuous shape.

Tuning is obviously on my to-do list – after all, the godfather of the new Supra, Tetsuya Tada, left built-in margin for further exploitation, and it’d be rude not to explore its potential. How far can we push it? We’ll have to wait and see. But fingers crossed for many, many horsepower.