What's all this about?
The Toyota Supra is finally back! Hurrah!
What, looking like that?!
Well, no. Obviously. This is the Toyota GR Supra Racing Concept revealed at the Geneva Motor Show. Wearing a livery that's not a million miles from the iconic Castrol colours which Toyota was once so well-known for across the motorsport world, the GR Supra Racing Concept has links to Gazoo Racing - Toyota's competition arm and also the team behind the Yaris GRMN. It features composite materials for the front and rear bumpers, the front splitter and that gigantic rear diffuser, the side skirts, the louvred bonnet, the door mirror housings and another large feature at the back, the T-bar wing. Polycarbonate is used for the windscreen and side windows, while BBS centre-lock wheels with Michelin motorsport tyres, Brembo brakes and a fully rollcaged interior with a racing dashboard, OMP seat/harness and an OMP quick-release, paddle-shift steering wheel are all part of the Geneva Supra's make-up. But you don't want to pay too much attention to all this stuff.
Why's that?
Well, firstly, despite all this Gazoo linkage, the stickers and wings and so on, Toyota has not confirmed it will take the Supra Mk5 racing when it finally hits the streets as a road car. And secondly, and tied into the previous point, strip the GR Supra Racing Concept of all its track-related addenda and what you are looking at here is the production version of the 2019 Supra. That is far more interesting stuff.
You said Mk5 - it's been a while since the last Supra, hasn't it?
Indeed it has. Generations one to four of the Supra began in 1978 and lasted until 2002. Since then, we've been agonising over the Supra's potential return. The arrival of the GT86 in 2012 heralded Toyota's revival of sportier vehicles and the Japanese giant has been talking about bringing the Supra back for a few years now, jointly developing the sports car alongside BMW, which is working on its Z4 (which will share much of the Supra's hardware). That means an inline turbocharged six-cylinder engine is the most likely form of power for the Supra, keeping tradition with the older cars, like the A80 that was the last version spotted in the wild in 2002.
Hold on, A80?
Yes, that was the codename for the fourth-gen Supra. The first three Supras were the A40, A60 and A70, respectively.
So the '90' number stickers on the side of the Geneva concept car...
Well done, Columbo. Yes, it's Toyota confirming that this is definitely what the A90 fifth-generation Supra will look like. And we simply can't wait for its return.
Matt Robinson - 6 Mar 2018