If you’ve got the money and need some sexy in your life, the 2019 Supra is for you

The 4th generation 1993 Toyota Supra had a classic grand tourer layout: rear wheel drive at the back, two seats in the middle and dose of poison under the bonnet at the front. Shaped like a a bullet fired from a gun, the coupe catapulted off the line like a startled cat with it’s timeless 2JZ straight-six, making it perfect for straight line speed and drag racing fanatics.

Twenty-six years later and after nine years of design rehashing, the 2019 Toyota GT Supra was breathed into reality with the touch of Gazoo Racing – Toyota’s in-house tuning division.

With only 200 models released for the South African market and a further 200 each year, exclusivity will be yours should you choose to buy one at just over R1 million.

The Supra’s rear arches are sculpted like the muscles of a pounce-ready panther, each housing 19-inch alloys in front of industrial sized exhaust tips.

Pinched lines in the tail lights and a carved duck-tail hatch seduce the eyes like a gym bunny in spandex, but the console and dashboard pales against its racy exterior with a surprisingly spartan and clinical layout.

BMW have supplied the chassis, straight-six turbocharged B58 motor and drivetrain from the Z4 into the Toyota and it shows: lifting up the bonnet reveals ‘BMW’ lettering scattered across various components and the entire cockpit feels like a cut and paste from a 3-Series, from the switch-gear to the in-dash screen.

Cult followers of the Supra’s heritage have claimed this as a blot on Toyota’s record; a heresy that destroys the pedigree history of the car – however sitting in the bucket seats and surrounded with the familiarity of German engineering, I can’t help but feel a peace of mind knowing that everything would actually be alright if I had to thrash the Supra to within an inch of its life, right towards mechanical mortality.

Accepted that the last German-Japanese relationship didn’t go all that well during their Mongolian holiday in 1941 – the marriage, however, between the powerhouse of a proven European motoring staple and the finesse of Japanese fine-tuning doesn’t appear to be making the Supra ‘soulless’ – in fact, it’s taken a loaded knockout punch from a Western heavyweight and given it the agility, finesse and light-footed sting of a samurai katana – Uma Thurman in Kill Bill.

Features that will entertain the punters is the introduction of a ‘sport’ button on the centre console.

Press it, and the first thing you hear is a baritone grumble from the rear pipes followed by a power and torque graphic on the central monitor.

Steering input sharpens up, throttle response becomes more attentive and suspension damping geometry adjusts to a track-like default setting tighter than a Lexus LFA, rolling up the Supra’s sleeves and oiling it over for a fight.

Fighting the laws of physics in my seat, the 50:50 weight balanced coupe evokes confidence while cornering at high speeds before girding its loins for the straight – smacking violently through each gear with the purposeful thud of a rifle bolt.

The experience is contrasted against the placid quiet felt when stopped at a traffic light, entertained by a 12-speaker JBL sound system including two huge woofers behind the driver and passenger.

Waiting for the colours to change from red to green, all sorts of gawks and smiles are seen from others cars and pedestrians, and it’s at this point that you understand the key difference between the Supra and Z4: in the Toyota, you get the feeling that people like you.

Driving around in eye-candy like the Supra means people give you way, let you out of side turns and whip out their phones to capture a picture – something you don’t seem to invite when you’re blending into the background with ‘just another BMW’ or even a Porsche.

A road legal ‘racetrack ready’ model will be available for purchase for a marked down price of around R955 000, stripped of its extras and presented as a blank canvas for tuning wizards to paint their black magic onto – such as RG Motorsport in Johannesburg who will fit a 76mm stainless steel exhaust system, performance air filter and engine remap to boost the power output from 250kW to 310kW, with the possibility of a hybrid turbocharger being offered later in 2020.

The B58 BMW engine requires no internal modifications to manage the extra power gains unlike similar Japanese performance motors – and with plug-and-play upgrades already on the market to shadow the R1,4 million Porsche Cayman GT4 (309kW), it seems like a no-brainer as an alternative choice for the individualist driver against the plethora of popular sports cars lined up on the M4 heading into Ballito.

Is it a thoroughbred Supra? No. Do I care? Not in the slightest.

There are lots of reasons not to buy a German-built Supra, but there’s one mammoth reason why you should: when you walk away from it in a parking lot, turn around and see the classic badge tucked bashfully onto it’s rear end like a tramp stamp peaking out the top of the finance manager’s miniskirt – it puts a huge smile on your face.

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