Remember also the AE86, the Celica, and the MR2? Toyota, you used to be cool. What happened?

Okay, I know what happened, but it’s still depressing…

Amen brother. However, my ‘86 300ZX 2+2 wasn’t a turbo but according to the manual and the Nissan dealership, one could’ve have purchased the 3.0L single turbo. In fact, when my engine blew up at 285K, I was quoted $3500 to replace it with a turbo V6.

Question then. Are cars only cool (from a Movie perspective) from the Baby boomer era fast forwarding to Gen Y? Skipping an entire generation in between? The only examples I could think of was John Candy’s turbo charged LeBaron Convertible in P,T,and A and Michael Douglas’ Mustang GT Convertible in Basic Instinct.

It wasn’t Katayama making the Top 5 claim, I believe it was a Popular Mechanics automotive article from 1994. I think the list was some Porsche (993?), maybe there was a Ferrari, Nissan GT-R, maybe the Corvette, I can’t remember, but very low volume hand-built “supercars” weren’t counted.

CAR magazine had a big track test back in 1996 or thereabouts. (The cover, if you’re looking through your collection, read “CHICANED!” and had a group photo.)

In their testing, which was done with the assistance of various BTCC types, the Supra Turbo was just a touch slower around their road course than a Porsche 993. Given that the 993 of that period

* had 270hp to play the Supra’s 320

* had 205mm front tires fitted OEM by Porsche to keep people from inappropriate rotation through promotion of outrageous understeer

* was a flippin’ air-cooled 911, never the fastest way to get around a track

…well, the Supra isn’t road-course optimized. It was always a big, heavy car (3468lbs is the most-quoted number) and was never well-suited to trackday duty.

For the record, and to make my connection with MkIV Supras more explicit, my partner in Green Baron Motorsports, Mark Mitias, is the long-time owner of a Supra Turbo outfitted similarly to the one above, and we have taken the car out to more than a few places. He attended the filming of the first F&F and those of you with frame-by-frame on your DVD players can spot him and his Supra during one of the nose shots of Johnny Tran’s S2000 during the final drag race.

Of course you’re right about the body kits and tuner parts. He didn’t like them either, but he specifically mentioned the US obsession with drag “racing” and how it personally offended him. The Mk4 Supra was designed specifically to “go round corners fast”. Veilside got a special mention as abhorrent (I’d thankfully never heard of them at the time).

I’d love to know what he is working on these days, but of course I hope it’s the Lexus LF-A.

That’s interesting given that Japanese tuners like HKS, JUN, GReddy/Trust, etc, were making Supra monsters in Japan long before the trend started in the US. The same is true with body kits and such. Virtually all the parts to modify a Supra, for a good long while, came almost exclusively from Japan. It was only much later in the car’s history, just about before Toyota pulled the plug on US sales, that US tuners started sticking Garrett and other turbos designed for diesel trucks on the thing and achieving truly ridiculous power levels.

I’ve always been annoyed by the generally rubbish body kits people tend to throw on the things. The design was clean and elegant, and extremely slippery, as originally intended. I believe a Supra still holds the Texas Mile record at something like 245 mph in a standing mile, on an almost entirely stock body. That the car is stable at those speeds speaks volumes of how well designed and built it is, and if anything, should serve to illustrate just how good a job Toyota’s engineers did.

15-plus years after the car was released, much less designed, and you can toss twenty grand into the thing and outperform a Veyron. That just blows my mind, and I would think justifies the aftermarket companies who make the bits that make it possible for the car to do that.

One of the things that really upset him was the US perversion to modify his car for straight lines via single turbos or other body-kit disasters.

The car was designed for more than power. The Getrag 6spd manual with the optional Bilstein corners could be hammered around a track very fast and for hours on end.

The Mk4 was way ahead of it’s time in 1993, and for a time was one of the top 5 fastest production cars you could purchase.

walksatnight: “Color me Kowalski. Can’t turn, Can’t stop, horrible build quality and yet the beauty of the 1970 Challenger does the trick for me for movie rides.”

I have no idea how many Challengers were sold due to what was essentially an extended, 90-minute Dodge commercial, but I would venture to guess that Chrysler got their money’s worth for the cars they provided to make Vanishing Point.

In fact, that’s actually how the movie was proposed. Someone asked the director if he could make a low-budget movie around five, white 1970 Challengers that Chrysler was willing to provide, free of charge.

Those Corolla GTS’ are good cars, but they’re anything but hot rods. Don’t be fooled by the adventures of Takumi Fujiwra, tofu deliveryman extraordinaire. The amount of money you’ll dump in one of them to get it to tangle with a stock supra is more than enough to justify selling it outright and buying a supra instead.

Followed by the Hemicuda from the Phantasm flic’s, the Men In Black dudes Charger in Bullitt and I’ll throw in McGarrett’s wheel squealing Mercury from Hawaii Five-O.

Google ‘Toyota Soarer’. The Soarer/SC came with a 2.5L version of the Supra TT engine in Japan, and the full 3-liter is almost a bolt-in. That 2.5L also showed up in some Toyota Mark II’s (which we knew, sans turbo mills, as the Cressida).

The 2JZ itself is the stuff of legend, rightly so considering it can match the output of the Corvette ZR1 on half the displacement, and without taking off the valve cover. They’ve been stuffed into just about anything worth driving with one, even S2000s and AE86s.

I must be goofy tired but this made me ROTFL. Thanks, Jack!

These guys can occasionally be heard on MURS channel 5 in the Hudson valley when they do a big car drive.

I’ve bought my Supra Turbo in 1999 (pre-Fast and Furious) for 25k. Which was a damn good price at the time, as it only had 36k miles. Could’ve have sold it after the movie for more, but decided to keep it.

I really like the car. Looks are subjective, but I like the way it looks, mostly stock (not riced out like many examples out there today).

The car has been dead reliable in all aspects. I’m still on the stock turbos, going on 10 years and 140k miles. The car pulls as hard as it did when I first got it. Of course, with any turbo car, must keep an eye out for leaking or cracked vacuum hoses.

The tranny and engine are remarkably over-engineered and stout. The gears in the tranny are big and heavy and take a lot of power.

The interior never struck me as poor quality. It is plain and utilitarian, not unlike the NSX, as mentioned above. However, remember that the Supra came out as a 1993.5 model and was essentially unchanged throughout it’s life up to the last year of 1998. You’re looking at an interior that was designed according to 1993 standards. However, no doubt that Toyota (and Lexus especially) have greatly improved interior quality, fit, and feel since then.

The car’s biggest drawback is weight. At the time, it was fairly heavy among it’s Japanese brethren, but superseded by the piggy 3000gt. Nowadays, the heavy weight doesn’t seem so egregious, as modern cars have gotten fatter.

The stock brakes are fantastic and held Car and Driver’s record for 70-0 stopping distance in 1997 and for a few years. Again though, with the weight, most road racers add additional cooling for the front brakes via ducts or other means.

Not a perfect car, and may not be for everyone, but overall I consider it a great ’90s sports car (and certainly a high point for toyota in terms of sports cars and driving capability). I enjoy driving it and working on it, and that’s really what matters.

I was always enticed by the other competitor, the final-generation RX-7, which was gorgeous, fast as hell, lighter and less gimmicky. Unfortunately, those RX-7s are fragile, unreliable, disturbingly thirsty, and very expensive to fix, as well as having a propensity for intimidating tail-happiness (particularly in the wet).

The Supra always left me cold. The Lexus SC300, which uses essentially the same platform (albeit about five inches longer) and the same base engine, is far better looking and a more attractive proposition. If I were more of a hot rodder, the idea of applying some of the Supra’s hop-up techniques to a SC300 would be very intriguing.

Twotone

But back to the topic… ahh the MK4 Supra, brings back memories from F&F premiere, the whole JDM scene did a nuclear explosion back then :)) I claim that the first F&F was a very good summer movie, with good cast and a very good vibe. It’s still pleasurable to watch. Hearing Live’s Deep Enough and seeing Brian’s F-150 Lightning pull up to order a tuna sandwich, just makes me smile and gives me chills :) Open up a cold Corona and press play on the remote :)

Supra’s more recent record-setting achievements:
:)

http://www.dpccars.com/car-videos-09/03-29-09page-Boost-Logic-Supra-runs-the-Texas-Mile-at-246-2-mph.htm

dubtee1480: “The Mustang in Bullitt, that’s what I was thinking too, but looking at the lineup that would have given you and then saying “forget them” and trotting out a Toyota may have been mistaken for having anti-domestic undertones so there you are…”

I guess Sean Connery and a DB5 in Goldfinger or Michael Caine with a Mini Cooper in The Italian Job could have been mentioned but, unlike the other actors, I don’t think either of them did much (if any) of the actual stunt driving in those movies.

Perhaps that’s why the McQueen reference was for LeMans and not Bullitt. I think he did much more of his own driving in the former than the latter.

Resale values remain incredibly high. You can’t buy one that isn’t salvage for less the $20k. Low mileage turbos still sell for $40k.

Have yet to have the pleasure of driving one, but have always thought about picking one up if the prices get to a reasonable level. Since they have remained the same for the last 5 years, and they are still making FF movies, doesn’t seem likely.