Toyota GR Supra 2.0

Month two, and the 2-litre Supra’s strengths are coming to the fore

‘GIVE IT TIME,’ I WROTE AT THE END OF MY first report on our 2-litre GR Supra. Well I’ve done just that and, I’m glad to report, the relationship is definitely starting to blossom. As it almost always does when you get more familiar with a car and learn to look beyond its foibles and begin to appreciate, cherish even, the things it does well.

In the smallest-engined Supra’s case, such things are not perhaps the ones you’d expect. For instance, I’m really beginning to like the way this car rides, and the way it suppresses road noise. Indeed, I just really like the way it goes down the road when you aren’t necessarily trying to remove the Lightning Yellow paint from its door handles.

It glides, does the Supra, in a remarkably chilled and relaxed manner if you set the dampers and drivetrain to Comfort. Yet looking at the car you would not expect that from it, would you?

Admittedly, you need to steer well clear of the Sport button if you want to experience the most chilled side of its personality. But if you do, well, I honestly can’t think of many other front-engined, two-seater sports cars I’ve driven that have made me feel more relaxed behind the wheel.

The damping of the rear end is especially good; it’s soft but still just about controlled enough not to allow the tail to fall over itself, even if you lean on it through a corner. The soothing-yet-crisp responses of the steering and the arms-out, bumon-the-floor driving position also play a part here, complementing the Supra’s effortless ability to put miles (quietly) beneath its rear tyres, which makes it an incredibly easy car in which to cover tediously long journeys. Given how much time I spend trudging along motorways to reach The Better Roads that lie beyond the horizon, I like that about the Supra an awful lot.

What I’m not so keen on and never will be, I suspect, is the engine. The lightweight petrol turbo four that sits lengthways in this car’s nose may be quite torquey, and it may even sound quite fruity if you select Sport mode and give it some revs in a low gear, but a great engine it is not. It is an efficient way of propelling the 1395kg GR Supra towards its destination, but in a car that’s otherwise as good as this, it will always be the weak link. Even though it’s mated to a sharp and generally excellent eight-speed paddleshift gearbox that does its best to mask the motor’s achingly obvious absence of guts, or personality.

The other aspect I’m not so keen on is the outward visibility, or maybe it’s just the diminutive proportions of the cabin itself that make me paranoid that I haven’t seen someone or something. I live in a city full of nutcases on e-scooters and pedestrians with their heads buried in their phones, and I’m constantly worried that I’m going to collect one of them, having simply not seen them out of the Supra’s mildly claustrophobic cabin.

No, open roads are the Supra’s most natural environment, even if it’s often for reasons you might well not expect.

Date acquired December 2021 Total mileage 3158 Mileage this month 800 Costs this month £0 mpg this month 31.1