Drive Test: Toyota Supra (2020) rises above criticism
Toyota’s 2JZ engine tends to crowbar its way into any Supra conversation with the BMW Z4 dragged in for some extra fire poking. I know the 2JZ well. In my earlier years of doing jobs like this one, I was dispatched to kick around venues like Tarlton and Wesbank Raceway where legal drag racing was thriving. It is in the confines of these 400 metres where the 2JZ is worshipped. Easily-sourced, the 2JZ’s insides can be spilled and enhanced to Godzilla power before bolted back together, longitudinally, into a menagerie of scrapyard trades from Toyota Corollas to Nissan Champs. Not that any 2JZ was exactly the same; in fact around these parts 2JZ decrees anything straight six, 3.0-litre turbo charged as a relative of Supra, the all-mighty.
To be quite honest with you, I’m glad the new Supra has divorced itself from the 2JZ engine. Cheapened by the thousands of imports disgorged on our shores from Japan where odometers have over-clocked, they’re hardly the epitome of pristine, authentic advocates of engineering. Just like the dishevelled, non-JDM cars they are later paired with.
BMW’s B58 is the modern image you want to portray when you open the bonnet of your new million rand Japanese sportscar. Perfect sophistication to suit the Supra’s musical chassis. Never a kilowatt over or under. The very best of friends, these two.
The same can be said for the rest of the car. Remember when BMW nestled a V12 engine under the McLaren F1’s skin – a car still hailed far and wide as the best supercar of the last three decades? BMW knows how to build great engines, great gearboxes and great switchgear. Frankly Toyota hit the jackpot. Toyota did the styling, chassis calibration, seating position, swapped a few badges like on the steering wheel and engine cover and built one of the most accomplished sports cars I’ve ever had the privilege of driving.
So don’t let the naysayers quip that because the engine is not the 2JZ, it’s therefore not a Supra. Take it from us, although the technical details have changed from the FT-1 concept shown five years ago, the deliberate plan to fill Supra’s seminal shoes has been very well executed. Take a bow. Andrew Leopold
SPECIFICATION
R1,072 300
2998cc, 6cyl, turbo petrol, RWD, 250kW, 500Nm
7.7l/100km, 177 g/km
0-100kph in 4.3 secs, 250kph
1495kg
