A day spent driving both of these cars around Southern California is setting with the sun, which is now dipping below the Pacific and painting the two turbocharged coupes with strips of gold. It's been a rare opportunity to drive the latest version of Toyota's hot rod back to back with its ancestral inspiration, the Supra's fourth-generation (code named A80), which was sold in the United States from 1993 to 1996. And although we set out to learn just how different these cars are from behind the wheel, they turned out to be more alike than we ever expected.
A Tale of Two Supras
To do this properly we needed to find a stock Mark IV Supra, specifically a Turbo model with a six-speed manual transmission and zero modifications. That's not easy. Yet, we found just that when the proprietor of MKIV.com connected us with Meystedt, a local 39-year-old entrepreneur and certified Supra nut. "I was 14 when the car came out in 1993, and it was a poster-on-the-bedroom-wall dream car for me," he said. "Years later I finally got one, and I had the only Supra in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where I grew up. I've owned a dozen modified Supras since. It's hard to fight the urge."
He's owned this particular one for about 12 years after buying it from the original owner in Pittsburg, Missouri, with 9000 miles on its odometer. Now it lives in his Southern California garage, parked next to a Lexus LFA and his daily driver, a Tesla Model 3. The Supra now shows 12,800 miles on its odometer and is perfect in every way, from its unmarked 17-inch five-spoke wheels to the gloss of its original paint finish. It's showroom-ready top to bottom and wears a set of Falken ZIEX all-season tires that were mounted about five years ago. "I think it's one of 431 Turbos Toyota built in 1994 with the optional targa roof," he said while opening the door. "We can remove the roof panel, but it's a pain. You have to crank out five bolts with the factory supplied ratchet in the glove compartment."
Opening the Supra Turbo's long hood reveals its sequentially-turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six. The 2JZ-GTE—iron block, aluminum 24-valve cylinder head, 11.6 psi of boost pressure. It is Japan's Chevy big block. It was rated at 320 horsepower at 5600 rpm and 315 lb-ft of torque at 4000 rpm. That's 20 ponies more than you got in a contemporary Nissan 300ZX Turbo, a Chevrolet Corvette C4, or a Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4, and 65 more than Mazda offered in the third-gen RX-7. "These were the first things you replaced," he says pointing to the small factory blow-off valve and the tiny intercooler under the right headlight. "Larger valves and a big front-mount (intercooler) make a big difference." Heavily modified Supras producing in excess of 1000 horsepower weren't hard to find by the end of the '90s, and the car ultimately achieved legendary status in the import-car scene, thanks in part to its starring role in the original The Fast and the Furious film.
Like its predecessor, the 2020 Supra (code named A90), is rear-wheel drive and powered by a turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six. Developed in partnership with BMW, it's essentially a mechanical twin to the latest Z4 roadster and features the German company's B58 aluminum-block engine, which sports a single turbocharger and direct fuel injection. It's rated at 335 horsepower at 6500 rpm and 365 lb-ft of torque at just 1600 rpm, but, as we've learned, it is considerably more powerful than Toyota claims. Unlike the A80, however, which was available with a standard six-speed manual or an optional four-speed automatic, the new Supra is only available with two pedals and a snappy ZF-sourced eight-speed automatic transmission with a manual shifting mode and paddle shifters.
READ MORE >>>
No comments:
Post a Comment