Toyota Supra GR Pro - Fast And Furious

We’ve had the new Toyota Supra for a week of fun and misbehaving. Toyota has created quite a dramatic car in the new Supra in more ways than one.

Our test car has been the GR Pro which means it’s the top model. It has the 3.0L straight-six engine which produces 335hp and 500Nm of torque. Interestingly the Supra makes peak power at 6500rpm but crucially, makes its torque between 1600rpm and 4500rpm. This means that you don’t need to rev the Supra to make good progress. With such strong torque from very low revs, combined with peak hp at higher revs, the engine is a straight-six masterpiece. Wherever you are in the rev range the Supra is ready to pounce and will reward you with instant power.

It only weighs 1495 kg curb weight, which makes for some pretty outrageous acceleration. 0-62mph is dispatched in just 4.3 seconds which makes it a match for an £84k Porsche 911 Carrera on paper. Not bad for just £52k.

Styling is striking and adventurous with soft flowing lines and beautiful curves. Unmistakable from any angle and from any distance with its wide haunches and tapering nose, Toyota’s Supra makes quite a statement. Wherever you go, the Supra raises eyebrows and snaps necks. You will receive admiring glances and comments and feel like a bit of a celebrity. It’s not uncommon to come back to the car and find someone taking pictures of it.

Driving the Supra is very exciting and always feels like an event. With 335bhp and 500Nm of torque in a short, agile chassis, the Supra feels alive and involving. Performance is pretty outrageous, the car is often fighting for grip under hard acceleration, but the chassis is superb and the electronic aides do a great job of taming the car.

Unfortunately, it rained almost non stop when we had the car.

Specification, The Supra GR Pro is a halo model for Toyota and as such, is very well equipped. Our car had a couple of options, but they were exterior options: forged alloy wheels and deep blue metallic paint. In all other respects, it was standard.
Standard equipment is extensive, with everything you would expect, from reversing camera to
pre-collision system, from lane departure alert with steering control to road sign assist. LED headlights with adaptive automatic high beam, intelligent adaptive cruise control, head-up display (HUD) and a million other superb pieces of technology to make your Supra a safe place to be.

The interior is superb. You feel cosseted and supported as you climb into the leather sports seats which grip you firmly. These are of course fully electrically adjustable for height, slide, lumbar, tilt and recline and are heated. You sit low and are very well supported, It’s an excellent driving position.

Infotainment is great with an 8.8" Toyota Touch® 2 with go navigation and JBL Premium Sound System with 12 speakers.
Driver modes are essentially normal and sport, with sport mode having three levels.
Toyota has endowed the Supra with variable gear ratio system (VGRS) power steering, adaptive variable suspension (AVS), traction control (TRC), vehicle stability control (VSC) and active sports differential. All of these are influenced by the driver mode settings.

In normal mode, the steering, suspension, gearbox and differential are all in their most relaxed settings. The car is still a sports car but is a more relaxed version of one.

Click the sport button and everything tightens up. Steering becomes faster and more responsive, the gear changes are faster and the car holds on to gears for longer, the suspension firms up and the differential tightens up. In sport mode, the traction control and stability control are still very much on. If you lose traction at the rear the traction control is pretty intrusive and will momentarily cut the power. It’s not particularly subtle but in the wet for example, it all happens quickly so the computers need to react fast.

In sport mode you can relax the traction control and stability control, allowing more wheelspin and more movement of the car, but still retains the ability to correct when needed. Or, there is a full-fat sport mode setting that takes the traction control and stability control off. You need to be on your toes if you are going down this road.

Handling is brilliant. Again, our week was almost entirely wet and in the wet, there is a hint of understeer, but overall, lots of grip. The car will move around if you press on, and it’s a lot of fun.

The chassis is superb. The car is short which makes it very agile and it has plenty of low down torque, so it’s quite lively. You feel the differential and traction control working together to keep things under control, it’s very effective.
In the brief moments of dry tarmac, I did see, the Supra showed how much grip it has and how hard it can corner.
In the brochure, it states that the Supra makes 335bhp. I have read an article where Litchfield motors who are renowned for their BMW tuning, state that they have never seen the B58 engine produce less than 360bhp, often more. Yet with just a £500 stage one remap, they can increase this figure to 440bhp. That’s very impressive.

The Toyota Supra is a fantastic, fun car to drive. Capable, fast, beautiful and always an event. You could argue a bargain too.