LONG-TERMERS
With a 335bhp straight-six and rear-wheel drive, the Supra should be very much our sort of car. But after nearly a year on our fleet, did this prove to be the case?
Our Supra has left us, so too our M340i Touring. Meanwhile, the full differences between our M550i and an M5 are coming into focus, as is what separates a Giulia Quadrifoglio from its rivals
AS POTENTIAL CONQUEST customers for the GR Supra go, I suspect I could be exactly the kind of person Toyota is looking for. I love a powerful coupe, don’t have a desperate need to impress my neighbours by having a premium badge on the car parked outside my house, and I couldn’t give two hoots about any of those Supras of old.
All of this meant I could approach the latest Supra with an open mind, and also that there was minimal risk of me getting all het up about its engine and some of the components in its cabin being of Bavarian rather than Japanese origin. Instead I could just get on with enjoying this car for what it was. But what exactly was it?
It was certainly distinctive. When so many performance cars are based on far more humdrum machines or share a family resemblance with numerous other models, to drive a car that looks truly bespoke is really quite special. There was absolutely no mistaking the Supra for anything else, and the attention it garnered, no doubt aided by our example’s Lightning Yellow paint, was often astonishing. How many other £50k, production-line cars get smartphone videoed by the occupants of following cars?
The Supra was also pretty decent value. Officially the 3-litre model lists at just over £54k, but there are plenty of deliverymileage examples available from Toyota dealers for around four thousand less, and you won’t need to spend days hunting for one in the right spec either, because essentially there is only one spec: fully loaded. As standard you get everything from adaptive dampers and an active differential to a head-up display and all the usual lane-assistance tech (disabled with a single prod of a single button – hoorah!). The only variable is the paint colour: yellow being no-cost, red a £620 option, and white, silver, grey or black £710.
That fifty grand includes a six-cylinder engine, too, something that also feels special when many cars previously powered by sixes have had high-output four-pots thrust upon them instead. And what a