[Viffermike]

Originally Posted by Red Bread

So it will have a torque dip at 4.5k rpm, sound like death and lean itself out over 6k rpm and die regularly on the Autobahn? I'm not saying Subaru always gets their engines right, but I've tried to buy a BRZ a few times and that engine is violently bad, and from what you just said and plenty of what I've read, it's Toyota's oh so brilliant engineers that did all of the bad things.

Well, to be fair, the FR-S/BR-Z engine is not that car's strength -- and it was never intended to be. What's notable is that the engine is about as un-Subaru as a flat-4 with Subaru DNA gets.

Part of what Toyota is plainly angling toward with the Supra's product positioning and marketing is a direct antithesis of what BMW typically angles toward: the aftermarket, both Gazoo-oriented and non-Toyota. If Bxx hardware is in the Supra, it will have to be friendly to that for any of that marketing to work, and for the car to sell as a GR, as a Toyota, or otherwise.

Here's a point not made yet: If the Supra is to be branded Gazoo (GR in the U.S.), you can be damned sure it's not going to put up with M Performance equivalents as Gazoo stand-ins. It's going to develop its own line of aftermarket products not just because the markets for the Supra and the Z4 are very, very different, but also because Toyota would be staking a whole new car brand on it. Remember Scion? Same deal. Toyota did it its way, and it was successful. Why change from that just because it's using someone else's drivetrain hardware?

[Red Bread]

Wait, Scion was successful?

But along that line, was any Toyota sports car, really? I know the Mk4 has a brief moment, but it was never that far removed from a (properly functioning) FD RX7 and the C5 came out and quickly eclipsed it at a lower price point.

I had a few friends with comically fast single turbo Mk4's and they lacked more than a little refinement. Maybe not as handicapped as a huge single turbo FD, but not exactly well rounded.

Nothing else seems like it was ever a standout, Celica, MR2 and others were all a bit of also runs compared to other choices. Mazda won LeMans and Honda cleaned up in F1 for ages, but Toyota and both racing and sports cars don't really strike me as a core strength. Reliable, boring and predictable, yes.

I'll be happy to give them credit for delivering something impressive here, but I suspect it will be outdated, heavy and lackluster long before it's wildly tunable, sporty and successful.

[supra93]

Originally Posted by mkoesel

Small ECU changes are possible.

Members of the enthusiast community.

A $20k difference is not likely, but as much as $10k+ could be, yes.

I'll buy that.

Q: Presumably it’s going to share the engine architecture, so how has Toyota developed the engine, suspension etc differently from BMW? Is it a more focused car?

A: From our side Toyota wanted to make a pure sports car, and BMW has a slightly different direction. Engine calibration is quite different between the two cars. Even if the hardware is the same in some elements, the calibration is completely different - the driving experience will be very different to the Z4.

http://www.evo.co.uk/toyota/toyota-s...-virtual-world

I think $10k max, otherwise they might lose too much money. I'm actually curious if there was an agreement on Toyota's part on how low they are able to sell their car for.

[Viffermike]

Originally Posted by Red Bread

Wait, Scion was successful?

Yes it was. The main success was changing the JDM/small-import customization game from a third-party-only league to a manufacturer-preferred one. That shift was seismic in automotive cultural history. You don't think Toyota learned a few tricks from that? The rest of the industry sure as heck did ...

Originally Posted by Red Bread

But along that line, was any Toyota sports car, really? I know the Mk4 has a brief moment ... nothing else seems like it was ever a standout, Celica, MR2 and others were all a bit of also runs compared to other choices.

The MR2 was the affordable mid-engine sports car of its time. Remember that the Supra grew out of the Celica, which was, off and on, the 2+2 to get from Japan (with healthy competition from the ZX/Prelude/RX-7/Eclipse) -- and dare I say that the last-generation Celica GT-S was a hell of a car for its price point. And don't forget the 2000GT, which predated the 240z by three years.

None competed with high-strung American sports cars because it wasn't the point to. The 'vette comparison is not valid. A more apt comparison would be with the Pontiac Fiero, or the Mercury Capri, or the Ford Probe. Different markets, different customers.

Originally Posted by Red Bread

Mazda won LeMans and Honda cleaned up in F1 for ages, but Toyota and both racing and sports cars don't really strike me as a core strength. Reliable, boring and predictable, yes.

I've posted before about Toyota's philosophy with racing. It's different than most other manufacturers in that it gets involved to improve commercial product, and leaves when it deems the involvement not worth the potential improvements to commercial product. Toyota's been this way since its founding. In virtually every circuit Toyota has decided to participate in, it has won consistently in. The same can't be said of many other manufacturers, including ones much more equated with racing. Don't confuse a difference in philosophy with a lack of success.

[Red Bread]

Haha, so winning isn't their goal? I must be better than Schumacher, he just clearly used the wrong philosophy.

And yes, 2000GT is a glorious thing, but more of an LFA sort of experiment, not really a successful sports car.

And in what world was a Probe comparable to a Supra?! I'd say RX7, 3kGT, 300Z and Corvette. If you're some anti American car weirdo, you can exclude it, but nearly every consumer did.l cross shop them and certainly as the dollar to yen tanked, consumers lost the value proposition of the Mk4.

Primary point being that they've never really had a wildly successful sports car. No Miata, no Corvette, not even a Z car type success. You're right that the Celica (even though it moved from rwd to fwd) was probably the longest tenured, but it was always a weird thing and nearly always someone else was making a better version of it.

[Viffermike]

Originally Posted by Red Bread

Haha, so winning isn't their goal?

Not always, no.

Originally Posted by Red Bread

And yes, 2000GT is a glorious thing, but more of an LFA sort of experiment, not really a successful sports car.

Point taken. But it took that exercise and a couple others to convince Datsun to make the 240z, which is arguably as important a sports car as the Corvette is in overall automotive history.[/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Red Bread

And in what world was a Probe comparable to a Supra?!

None. I was comparing it to the Celica, which was an extremely successful car for Toyota. So was the MR2. Note that I included the Eclipse and not the 3000GT/Stealth as part of the comparison, and the 300ZX was a crossover; the twin turbo version was the only one that really competed with those other cars you mention.

Originally Posted by Red Bread

If you're some anti American car weirdo, you can exclude it, but nearly every consumer did. l cross shop them and certainly as the dollar to yen tanked, consumers lost the value proposition of the Mk4.

Not an anti-american weirdo, but someone who thinks globally, understands how the Japanese performance car differs from those from other parts of the world, defines performance and success broadly, and recognizes the value of a niche market readily.

Originally Posted by Red Bread

Primary point being that they've never really had a wildly successful sports car. No Miata, no Corvette, not even a Z car type success. You're right that the Celica (even though it moved from rwd to fwd) was probably the longest tenured, but it was always a weird thing and nearly always someone else was making a better version of it.

Yet Toyota is the world's largest automotive company. Is that not successful? Point being: Toyota didn't have to rely on a hyper-successful sports car that slayed everything that competed with it to outdo, say, Honda. Toyota takes the broad view. That has its pitfalls, yes (again: look at Honda), but it also can be looked at as hedging its bets. Everything Toyota does revolves around its consumer products. That's the most important thing to remember about it vs. (again?!) Honda, which has crashed and burned in a number of endeavors, and (OK!) Chevrolet, which couldn't build a high-quality consumer car to save it life for a solid 20 years in the 1980s and 90s.

[Red Bread]

I'm not disrespecting Toyota. They build awesome appliances. I'm only questioning their ability to make a sports car that lives up to the hype it's already facing.

Remember that one time Porsche had a diesel SUV?

[ceedawg]

I’m just suprised that Toyota does not go the way of the GTR by getting rid of the inline 6 and go with a TT V6 made by Toyota or even TTv8. Their Fseries Lexus’s have been successful with their NA V6s and V8’s(IS,RC,ISF,RSF) why do they need BMW to assist I don’t get it. They need to learn from Nissan/Infiniti G60 Redsport and GTR 100% Nissan.

Is it economics?

[hellrotm]

JDM world will properly show how to get the most out of B58 in aftermarket.

[M3_WC]

Originally Posted by Red Bread

I'm not disrespecting Toyota. They build awesome appliances. I'm only questioning their ability to make a sports car that lives up to the hype it's already facing.

Of course there is doubts, the Supra is such an iconic car. But I think many are looking at it in the wrong way. Toyota is essentially getting to develop the next gen M coupe(minus a S motor). Toyota does have recent success in developing the GT86/FRS chassis, raved for it's driving dynamics(but dogged for its anemic powerplant).

If you think about, just about all of BMW cars are a great starting point for building performance vehicles. M models are built upon their pedestrian counterpart. If Toyota has taken the base Z4 and in a sense built their own version of a M car. It could very well end up being something special. Of course the Supra isn't getting a S designated engine(there is indication Toyota will tweak B58 a bit), the M2 has a tweaked N55 and the overall package is excellent. This quote from Tetsuya Tada could give some insight into what I'm talking about, "the Supra will differ from the Z4 in that the Supra is intended to be a “pure sports car.” I feel like he is trying to convey they are building their own version of a M car. Only downside I see, is the possibility of no manual.

[ceedawg]

Originally Posted by ceedawg

I’m just suprised that Toyota does not go the way of the GTR by getting rid of the inline 6 and go with a TT V6 made by Toyota or even TTv8. Their Fseries Lexus’s have been successful with their NA V6s and V8’s(IS,RC,ISF,RSF) why do they need BMW to assist I don’t get it. They need to learn from Nissan/Infiniti G60 Redsport and GTR 100% Nissan.

Is it economics?

Lexus 3.5L TT V6 416h 448 ft lbs tq. This is the way Toyota should go for the Supra