Toyota Supra MK4 | Over Hyped or Legendary?

The Mk4 Toyota Supra. One of the most iconic cars to ever come out of the Japanese sports car world. And usually you'll find people in two camps. Those that put this on a pedestal and say it's one of the best cars ever. And then you get those that think it's an overrated blob bloat mobile with underwhelming performance. Regardless of what you think, we're going to try to tell the story of this car with the help of Albon Films. I met Guf and Billy at the launch of the BMW collaboration Supra, where I was blown away with these guys obsession with this car. I questioned their sanity, but I did not question their knowledge. Because of their extreme level of ownership and the ability of them to rebuild these things and refurbish them, I wanted to have them tell the story from their perspective of the history of this car. Before we took over and talk about the technical bits and of course the driving experience. The story of the legendary Supra actually starts with the story of a much less legendary Toyota, the Celica. You see, in the 1970s Toyota made a splash with their all new Celica two-door coupe. It was a tiny little Mustang with an efficient four-cylinder engine. The perfect recipe for coupe Americans during the oil crisis. And they sold a boatload of them. So with that success Toyota decided to go bigger and better with the second generation Celica. So in 1978 the Toyota Celica got redesigned and they brought with it a brand new special top spec model called the Celica XX. It was designed to be the ultimate grand touring car from Japan. The design was sportier and the body was stretched five inches longer than the regular car. And under the hood was a four-cylinder no more. This time it was an inline six. Either a two liter making 125 horsepower or a 2.6 liter 4M engine making 140 tremendous horsepower. This was the biggest and baddest power plant in the Celica to date. And along with that power came the opulent luxury of disc brakes, an adjustable steering column, and optional anti-roll bars. And yes this was world-class kit especially for a Toyota. And it did so well in the Japanese market in 1979 that they decided it's time to bring this thing to the United States. But Celica XX didn't quite roll off the tongue in American and so Toyota came up with a new name for the West. The Celica Supra. And thus the Toyota Supra was born into the world. Now only making 116 horsepower thanks to U.S. emissions regulations but still more than enough to compete with the much more expensive Nissan 280ZX. The Americans loved it. It looked mean and muscley. And even though it wasn't particularly fast it was nimble enough to keep you from falling asleep at the wheel. In 1984 Toyota bumped the Celica to 2.8 liters now making 145 horsepower. And it really seemed like good times ahead for the Toyota Celica. Until the worst thing that could ever happen to a car happened. In 1985 Toyota announced the fourth generation of Celica and this time it sent all of its power to the front wheels. The times were a changing and economy trumped dynamics in this new era of motoring. But even though the Celica was now destined to just be a beefy Corolla, the Supra was not. You see Toyota decided to spin off the Supra nameplate into something else entirely. A model completely independent of the Celica nameplate. And all of the greatness of the previous Celica would be passed down to this new car. An inline six engine, this time the 3.0L 7M, 5 speed manual transmission, and perhaps most important of all, rear wheel drive. This new Supra was everything the Celica was and more. It had 3 channel ABS, 200 horsepower, it had active dampers in the 80s. All in a sharp angular design that was peak 1980s aerodynamic. And if all that wasn't enough, Toyota decided they were going to bring out the big guns the next year. The Toyota Supra Turbo. This had a boosted version of the 3.0L inline six, now making 231 horsepower thanks to a coil ignition system and a variable intake. And then in 1990 Toyota blessed the Supra with the greatest gift that any car manufacturer has ever given to any model, the JZ engine. This time around it was the 2.5L 1JZ making a whopping 276 horsepower, making it the fastest thing Toyota's ever made. But it was around this time that Toyota was working on a secret project, one that would blow the 3rd generation Supra away. Toyota's technical center in Aichi was buzzing with the company's top engineers. And passerbys would spot stock Mark 3 Supras and Z30 Toyota Soarers going into the building. But only strangely modified Mark 3 Supras coming out. And that's because in 1990 those engineers under the watchful eye of chief engineer Isao Suzuki were hand assembling a freak frankenstein of a Toyota. On the outside it was just another Mark 3 Supra, but underneath the entire suspension system was replaced with the aluminum double wishbones of the Soarer. The brakes were upgraded to larger four piston units, and the engine note, deeper with a distinct whoosh of turbochargers. By the very next year, an all black Toyota prototype was seen lapping the Nürburgring. And in April of 1993, all of those shadowy prototypes were revealed to be the 4th generation Toyota Supra. It was first shown at the 1993 Chicago Auto Show, and this was a massive departure from the outgoing Supra both in styling and in engineering. The body was smooth with gentle curves and rounded edges. Gone were the sharp creases of the Mark 3, because this Supra was designed with all the most modern aerodynamic technology. And it was designed to be smooth and stable at high speeds. High speeds that were easily capable thanks to the all new power plant, the Toyota 2JZ engine. No ----. 3 liter iron block with an aluminum double overhead cam head, one that made a respectable 220 horsepower breathing its own air. It strapped two turbochargers to the side and the 2JZ was capable of 320 horsepower and 318 pound feet of torque. When sent through the all new Getrag V160 six speed transmission, it was capable of 0-60 in just 4.6 seconds. And yes, while your crackle tune Hyundai Elantra N probably does that too, back in 1993 this was faster than the Acura NSX, the Corvette ZR1, the Ferrari 348, and the Lotus Esprit Turbo. And it wasn't just thanks to raw power. The car had forged aluminum wishbones, an aluminum hood, and an aluminum front subframe. The carpets had specially produced hollow fibers just for lightness. The steering wheel, although it looked like it came out of a Toyota Sienna, was made of magnesium. And the rear wing was made of a lightweight plastic that was injected with gas to keep it rigid at high speeds. Over the course of the car's development, Isao Suzuki and his engineers had over 950 meetings on how to reduce weight alone. This was Toyota's best engineers going all out to produce the very best sports car they could, and it showed. The Mk4 Supra handily laid a smackdown on many of its competitors in magazine shootouts. Pulling .95 G in the skid pad thanks to its specially designed Bridgestones. And out-braking literally every other car on the planet. With its very fancy G-sensing ABS unit that brought the car from 70 to 0 in 149 feet. A breaking record that held for over a decade, until the Porsche Carrera GT broke it in 2004, stopping in just 3 less feet. The 4th generation Supra was truly the best car that Toyota had made in decades, and it was the crown jewel for a manufacturer that was dominating almost every segment in the 1990s. But it wasn't a perfect car, not by any means. It was a fair bit softer and quite a lot heavier than its competitors like the Mazda RX-7, making it a far less focused driver's car than the Mazda. Yet on the other hand, the interior was pretty spartan compared to the near 4,000 pound luxury barge that was the Mitsubishi 3000GT. And while maybe you think that, oh it was the perfect choice then for the Goldilocks sports car buyer at the time, that buyer just didn't exist. The economy was slowing quickly in the mid 90s and expensive toys like the Supra just weren't very popular. And when I mean expensive, I mean expensive. A loaded up Supra Turbo was nearly $50,000 in 1993. That's over $100,000 in today's money. And that's why the Mark 4 Supra was actually a failure. The car was tremendously expensive for Toyota to manufacture, being built in the now famous Motomachi plant. And every single year, the price crept further and further up, while sales dipped lower and lower. By 1997, Toyota decided to make a hail mary price cut by 20%, but the writing was already on the wall. It took just one more year, and in 1998, the Supra was officially discontinued in the United States. And by 2002, the Supra was dead around the world. Post 2000, the world economy was at a crawl, and car makers like Toyota realized that the only way to survive was to cut out all the fat and only produce volume sellers. The car that finally put Toyota at the top of the sports car food chain was, ironically, one of the reasons that Toyota stopped building sports cars entirely. And although there were still souped up Celicas and MR2s on dealer lots, the Supra was laid to rest with no chance of ever coming back. But if the Supra was such a failure, then how did it become the de facto JDM drag queen of the world? One that nearly 30 years later has kids yelling out of their mom's minivan and shitposting on Reddit about how their friend's Supra could easily smoke your Lamborghini Aventador. Well, it has something to do with this guy. Kind of. While most people attribute the Supra's resurgent success to the 2001 masterpiece of a film, Fast and Furious, that's not really true. You see, in the early 2000s, Supras were cool, but they were still depreciating 90s shitboxes. A few people that knew how to tune them were pouring boost into them and making the 4-digit horsepower numbers that we've all come to love and enjoy, but for the most part, nobody really wanted them. By the late 2000s, you could get Supras for $25,000, $30,000 with relatively low mileage. And if you were like me or my brothers, you could find examples that needed a little bit of work for under $20,000. But as the cultural relevance of the tuner scene grew, so did the notoriety of the Supra. And with the prevalence of newer, more high-tech tuning solutions, the pig-iron 2JZ soon became the darling of big power builds, thanks to its near indestructible nature. And that, of course, was complemented by the over-engineered drivetrain that Toyota so graciously put in the Supra. And so by the mid-2010s, the Supra became the king of all things JDM. And ironically, thanks to the tuner scene racing, crashing, and otherwise molesting the only 12,000 Supras that made it to American soil, plus parts availability beginning to dwindle, the values of clean, well-kept Supras began to rise. And the rest, as they say, is history. Now Supras are selling for $100,000, $150,000, and in some cases over $200,000. And while that might sound like a tantalizing proposition for a Supra owner like myself, here's a hot take. The Toyota Supra is not a $200,000 driving experience. But you don't have to take my word for it, because your favorite silver macarilla and albino mole rat are finally behind the wheel of a Toyota Supra. These Elban guys, how many people do you know, Jack, that have ever owned 14 of the same car? I mean, it's borderline... Oh, they have some screws Yeah, yeah, that's true. So let's talk about what this car is and isn't. Because, you know, we're talking about 30 years removed from when this came out. And when you look at the values now of what people are paying for, for a clean version of it, it goes beyond nostalgia. It's going into the area of, like, insanity. Nobody should be paying... This is not a $200,000 car. No, and I think that's rare, you know, maybe pushing $100,000 plus. Even a six-figure car, it's hard to argue that this is a six-figure driving experience. And we had the same debate with the Integra Type R and some of these other legacy cars, like the CRX we got out of. Very special car. Would you pay $60,000, $70,000 for that? Depends on who you are. So let's go back in time a bit. In the 90s when this came out, you know, most of the enthusiasts... I was getting a little bit older. I was hitting my 20s about the time when the 93, 94 Supra came out. And the overall consensus was we had 300ZX, we had 3000GT VR4, we had Supra Twin Turbo, and we had the RX-7. These are, like, historically amazing JDM cars of that era. The problem was, is when you're younger, just like today, we were buying $15,000 Civics, Integras, Preludes, you know, Mr. Twos. Like, all of those cars were more attainable. And when you release something like this in the $40,000 plus price range, that was unobtainium. That was, like, you know, equivalent of, like, a $100,000 car now. So they just didn't sell. Their target market that had that kind of money were going to the German cars, like, instantly. These did not have that level of credibility for that price. So they sat. They didn't sell. They didn't do well. And as Albon talked about, these guys, you know, obviously, media and Toyota even joked around about this in their launch event. Like, our cars never are popular and all that. But I think what it did is it drove down the prices. And as the economy leveled out, you know, people buying these used for a value. And when you could get them for, like, $20,000, $25,000, and then mob the hell out of them for 1,000 horsepower, it just ramped all of this up. And that enthusiast market grew. And really, all of these cars I talked about, with the exception of the 3,000 GT, you know, all of these are very sought-after cars for their own individual reasons. The Supra, Jack, what makes it special, though? This is the car where the engineers got to accomplish, within reason, what they always wanted to do. They were taking the bones of the Mk3 and then trying to figure out how to improve it. So as Albon said in the beginning of this video, one of their primary focuses was to drop weight. So for the Mk4 Supra, they dropped nearly 300 pounds. And the way they accomplished that is adapting a lot of the chassis improvements to the Toyota sports car recipe that the Toyota store, also known as the SC300, made. And that car was released in 1991. So they took the front and rear subframes of that car and also shortened the vehicle by about five inches. And the rear subframe, which is double wishbone, and all of the components in the suspension are aluminum, had different mounting points. Obviously, the spring rates are different, and calibration is different for the shorter wheelbase. The different intended purpose of the Toyota Supra. The Supra, while it is a dedicated sports car, much like the NSX, was trying to achieve both the ability to put down tremendous performance numbers, while also being something a wealthy Japanese businessman could go flying down the highway in. The car, in its weight reduction strategy, uses an aluminum hood, all aluminum suspension components, a aluminum targa top, if you've got this thing as a targa, and they did their best to shave weight. It's still a heavy car, though. Again, going back to the GT sports car philosophy, it's between 34 and 3,500 pounds. Aerodynamics was also a big priority for this generation of Supra. So without the wing, the car had a 0.31 coefficient of drag, and with the wing, it had a 0.33. It doesn't generate a ton of downforce, but it's still trying to be more aerostable. And in the Japanese markets, it had an active front spoiler, which, again, helped reduce lift on this car. The steering in this car is not manual. It was hydraulic. And I think because of some of the technology that was integrated in this car, it doesn't feel entirely of its period. A lot of early 90s sports cars were very raw and visceral feeling. Think NSX without power steering. This car, again, being that GT, feels a lot more modern when you're behind the wheel. It may not look like a late 2000s car, but in many of the aspects of the way it feels to drive, it feels that way. The big thing that obviously made this car legendary is the drivetrain. The 2JZ. So you could get this car with both a naturally aspirated six-cylinder engine or the 2JZ. The 2JZ is famous for being essentially indestructible. It has two sequential turbochargers. One is responsible for lower RPM, and they both kick in at higher RPMs. It is a closed deck iron block with aluminum heads, and it has forged connecting rods and a forged crankshaft. In the Japanese markets, it produced less than 300 horsepower, and here in the U.S., it produced over 300, making it a very, very fast car. Zero to 60, as Albon mentioned, was in the low fives, high fours, depending on who did the independent testing. And I think, yeah, the other part of that is, as technology improved, you know, after this car was gone, you know, people really started to get into the modification culture where, you know, the old mechanical style car of the 90s, what all you had to do was turbocharging, improve breathability, the class of things, bigger injectors, bigger fuel pumps. You know, it was making a lot of power, and you started to realize how much and how overbuilt this car was, and that's when it really started to take off. You know, making power was not, you know, like it is today. The other thing that they did is it's vastly ahead of its time period in terms of, you know, you touched on it. When you look at the underbody, and yes, this isn't a pristine example underneath, when you look, there's not a lot of cars with aluminum subframes these days. You know, you have to go way up into the price range usually to do that. Aluminum works was not that common back then on a car like this. So just looking at the underbody, the shock technology, they put a lot of time and effort into the body structure just as much as the engine. The engine gets all the notoriety, but there is a lot of tech behind this car, and it is special for that reason. And they try to simplify a lot of things going back to the reduction of weight. The Mark 3 Supra had adaptive dampers. They got rid of it for the Mark 4. You go to the gearboxes as well. You have a four-speed automatic, which was built by Aisin, which is relatively simple. I'm sure by modern standards, it isn't very good. Yeah. Or you have the six-speed Getrag manual gearbox. The one thing I will say about that is if you are looking to buy one of these things, as Gough told me from Albon, they are catastrophically expensive now because they don't make them anymore. Right. But that, again, that's sort of the novelty of this car, is it was very ahead of its time, but at the same time, the driving experience is relatively simple. There aren't a billion different drive modes. Right. There's not all the overcomplication to the vehicle. Well, it's what people really wanted from this era of car, but now people want it now, and we can't have it anymore. And that's the nostalgia part. That's the thing that we keep harping on in all these videos as we talk to older engineers, older executives, like, we can't do this anymore. So this has become that golden era classic style car that blended all the modern tech, but still kept things very simple mechanically before all the electromechanical systems came into place. And that's really why this car is special. But, Jack, we're going to walk through the driving experience in pretty good detail so you can get a better feel for what this car was really doing in its era. All right, Jack, Mark IV Supra, bone stock. And JDM, Mark. That's why you are on the wrong side of the car, the right side of the car. The wrong side of the tracks. So a lot of people have not driven a Supra before, and this is completely stock. Walk me through what it feels like dynamically. It's super soft. Like, it's really soft. And, you know, a car this soft is makes sense from the era. It's exactly what I kind of expected. There's a lot of body roll and there's a ton of secondary motions between the front and the rear. So, like, when you turn in, the rear is kind of still bobbling around and it never particularly sets. And can you imagine this on even the original tires that came on it? There would be almost no grip to be had with it. I think it's predictable, though. It's very predictable. And what surprises me is its character kind of when you're you're throwing it around at slower speeds, you're like, oh, man, this thing is going to be horrible when you start to push it. But the more you push it, the more it starts to come alive. It's really enjoyable to drive. And some of that is just the connectivity of it being an older car. Like you feel everything in this. You feel you feel like you're connected to it. And in granted, you know, the handling isn't the greatest here, but I can see with just a little bit of modification how you can get the suspension to come alive, some real tires and some real brakes, because the engine, even at the stock power level, is more than adequate. The front end, while there isn't the most amount of grip, particularly compared to some of the more modern sports cars we've driven, does a good job loading up and turning in. If you overwhelm the front, it will understeer. But you're right. It feels like there's a good rotation from the rear all the time. Oh, it does. It always it's really eager to rotate. And it kind of does want to really get some speed in it and load it up. The rear end does set. How is the steering? The steering is. I'll be honest, it's hydraulic, it's overassisted, but there's feeling in it. So I would rather take this with a little bit of overassisted hydraulic with feedback than a lot of the new EPS units where it's just like nothing's there. Nobody's home. You don't feel anything. This there is some connection with the vehicle. And remember, you know, this wasn't a flat out sports car track weapon. It was a GT car, right? This meant to be the businessman's long distance car. Yeah. That happened to be an era supercar fast. How is this 2JZ? Dude, I mean, when you put in perspective of the era that it came out with, or came out in, when all you had was like these dinky ass four cylinders that made no power or no torque, that made no power. Oh, yeah. This thing is flying. I mean, even to today's standards, it's quick. It's really quick for what it is. And I can see where you start talking about, can you imagine this car with a thousand horsepower? Like it'd be ******* ridiculous how fast it would be. And if you didn't do brakes, you would die. To do any road course work, you'd have to have some serious chassis modifications because there's so much twist and compliance on the body. I don't know, man. I'm really kind of impressed with this car. I thought it would be a lot worse out here. A lot worse. Because this isn't really, by modern standards, it's natural habitat. No, it's not. And it's, you know, you're talking about like pushing 30 year old design and car. On a racetrack, it's not really meant to do that. Right. I mean, I really enjoy driving this, man. A lot more than I thought I would. Would I spend 60 plus thousand dollars on something like this? Hell no. But I mean, it's a good look at the best thing that they could do in this era for the price. Here's my question for you. I don't know if our NSX film has come out yet when we release this, but we drove the Gen 1 NSX, several different models over different years. You know, that is the pinnacle of Japan from this era as well. How does this car compare to that? It doesn't at all. I mean, you can make the argument the engine here is much better for overhead. Like you have way more overhead with this engine to do more. But in terms of a driving tool, the NSX is like at least three generations better than this car in terms of body structure, overall feel, the way that it feels to drive it. There's no comparison. I think that car feels special, particularly the early models without EPS. Yes. Because you feel like you are in a really connected, wonderfully balanced car. Like in this corner, I remember when we drove the Gen 1 NSX, I'm like, holy ----, this front end's incredible. This car has aged really well for being 30 years old. And obviously the reason why people love this is it's a good car to make fast. That being said, a lot of modern cars are fast now. Yes. So that's why there's this irrelevance here with this car. I mean, you know, other than if you could have a pristine version of this with some work done to the engine and having the suspension sorted, I think it would be a very special experience. You know, if you're looking at it today, it hasn't aged well. If you're looking at it from the time period that it was released, it was amazing for what it was and the amount of power and the gearbox and all those things that it did well. I mean, it's going to go down as being one of the most desirable Japanese cars of that era by a long stretch. I agree, Mark. So with that, I think it's time for us to wrap up this video. All right, Jack. Final thoughts on the Mark 4 Toyota Supra. We took a different approach with this car because of its age. We don't have the experience with it. We didn't grow up with it. We haven't owned this car like Albon did. And with all of their experience, they're able to tell a unique story and mostly from real world experience. Now, while they may not have grown up with the car to live through the era of it, they're pretty honest about what it is and what it isn't. Our job was to look at it and decide how is it held up over time? What is it like to drive a stock example in the 2020s now? And I think the key takeaway is mechanically, this is like peak Toyota. This is what everybody wants from Toyota as a brand. Hardcore, overthought engineering about mechanical design, something that lasts forever, that's bulletproof. Something that you could take 30 years into the future, and that's exactly what they did. Now, the thing is compared to modern sports cars, it's nowhere near as capable. It's nowhere near as fast. It's nowhere near as fun, and it's not as edgy. You have to modify the hell out of it. But that's really no different than some of the other sports cars of its generation in that price range. There's a lot of comparisons made to NSX or Type-Rs of that era as well. And this is more of that GT car. It really does feel very soft. It's comfortable to drive every day. It lacks the edge of the NSX and the Type-Rs. So I think in some ways, it's not as much of a driver's car until you really start digging into it and tearing it apart. So if you're buying this as a collectible to stuff it in a garage, it's a unique art piece of the history of cars. But if you're buying it to have fun, you know what you're going to do. We've seen endless amounts of videos of people modifying that. And I think that's where you're going to really reach the peak of what this car is. Is it worth $100,000 plus? Hell no, it's not. And that's just coming from driving all these cars. It doesn't offer a special enough experience. But if you're loaded full of nostalgia and you love Toyota for what they are at their core, and you have the money, you might be willing to pay well over that to get a clean example. I completely understand it. But I'm going to leave it at that. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next video.