► Concept hints at next Toyota Supra road car
► Twinned with the next BMW Z4
► GR Supra Racing Concept shown at Geneva
The Toyota Supra is finally here – sort of. After months of spy shots, which you can see below, Toyota has unveiled the GR Supra Racing Concept, a racing version of an imminent production model. Unleashed at last week’s Geneva motor show, the car looks a lot like the FT-1 concept we’ve already seen in Gran Turismo games – and now the new Supra has also appeared in Gran Turismo.
A new video on the Toyota YouTube channel shows the new Supra Racing Concept drifting in various locations without livery – and the footage looks alot like it’s come directly from GT Sport.
That makes sense, because the new car will soon appear in the game’s April update – along with 11 other new cars and two new tracks. You can watch the video below, and read our review of GT Sport here.
Toyota has released the GR Supra Racing concept, signalling the inevitable release of an all-new Supra. Showing just how important a halo model the Toyota GR Supra Racing Concept is to the brand, president and CEO Dr Johan van Zyl fist-pumped the air upon its announcement at the 2018 Geneva motor show.
Sure, it’s just a concept at the moment – and dressed in bespoilered battle armour – but the Gazoo Racing-tuned Supra previews the production coupe jointly developed with BMW, that will also spawn a successor to the Z4 Roadster. To find out more about the project, and what we’ve scooped so far, you can read our spyshot report of the new Toyota Supra here.
With pert proportions that highlight its rear-wheel drive powertrain, the fifth-generation Supra immediately looks more agile than its somewhat bloated predecessors. Fingers crossed that Toyota’s knowhow in producing fine-handling cars, combined with the expertise of BMW, will ensure the driving experience will sate the appetite of enthusiasts.
That the Supra has debuted in concept form as a Gazoo model indicates the future importance of Toyota’s performance brand to its model line – it’s a statement of intent about a very high performance version to crown the range, capitalising on the brand’s involvement with the Dakar, WRC and LMP1 prototype racing.
It’s a thoroughbred racer, featuring lowered suspension – indicating the road car will sit higher – and centrelocking BBS wheels wrapped in sticky race-spec Michelin rubber. Behind these sit Brembo brakes, while a racing exhaust pokes out of the aggressively styled rear bumper.
Toyota has also gone to the trouble of fitting full competition safety gear (cage/fire extinguisher/pedal box etc) which to us is a thinly veiled assersion that we’ll see this car competing in the near future. It even has a plastic windscreen and side windows.
Keen gamers will be able to experience the new Supra GR Racing Concept first, though: it’ll be available in an update to Gran Turismo in April 2018.
What else do we know about the next Toyota Supra?
We already know how fast the new car is going to be. Potentially.
We’ve already spied the production car out testing on public roads, and we understand it’ll use a non-hybrid straight-6 motor, similar (in concept at least) to the mk4 Supra launched back in the ninties. Power is claimed to be around 330bhp, fed through an eight-speed automatic gearbox.
It’ll be another car featuring Toyota’s new Gazoo Racing branding that we first experienced in the Yaris GRMN. Oh, and you see that number 90? That’s no accident – it’s a reference to Supra model designations of yore. The previous one was known internally as JZA80, which followed JZA70…
Based on the FT-1 concept car and built on the same platform as the forthcoming new BMW Z4, we’ve got no word on pricing or specification at this point, but the new Supra should land in Europe in late 2019.
More news from the Geneva motor show 2018
