Here’s why the new Toyota Supra will be Flop
Way back in 2014, Toyota stunned the automotive world by revealing their FT-1 Concept in Detroit. It was beautiful, as many concept cars are. Then we eventually heard about what this car was really going to be: the new Toyota Supra. Toyota has teased everybody to no end, allowing the tiniest details to emerge from hiding over the past several years. Here we are today, still waiting for the final release.
Even now that the Geneva Auto show has come and gone, the best that we have from Toyota is the GR Supra Racing Concept. Notice that last word. It’s still in concept form, even this far from the initial date of the FT-1 Concept’s release! Speculation has increased as to the definitive details about the actual production car. Some specs have supposedly been leaked, but I’m not going to go into that right now until everything is out in the open. It’s been this long already, and I’d rather just wait until we see it publicly at this point to really talk about actual facts.
What we do know for certain is that this car has been co-developed between Toyota and BMW, and that it’s taken a long time even to get to where we are now. We know that it will have the upcoming BMW Z4 as a sibling, and that’s great news for enthusiasts! It means that the possibility exists for the inline six-cylinder engine to be used in the Supra, a proper homage to the Mk IV. The fact that the car has been sitting this long in development doesn’t bode well though, and it could be one of the largest reasons the new Supra is destined to fail.
Remember the Honda NSX? It was a true hall-of-famer in the automotive world. I said “was” because there is a new Acura NSX available for purchase right now, but that car had been promised at least 8 years before its final production debut. The anticipation was too great, and the final product didn’t exceed expectations. Today, the NSX is very nearly a sales failure largely because of the inability to live up to the hype. The Supra has a very high potential to achieve the same results. To put it another way, there is always incredible danger in requiring a new car to bear a name which commands unwavering respect 20 years after it was laid to rest.
It’s really as simple as that. The anticipation for something so great usually exceeds reasonable, present-day expectations. A car could be perfectly wonderful to drive and to own, but if it isn’t perceived to be as great as it once was, it will fail in at least some small way. A name means everything in the car industry. “Toyota Supra” is more than just a name. That means that the new version has that much more that it must give in order to truly be a success. Sadly, that can’t happen because the Mk IV lived during a different time. It’s easy to see that the new Supra won’t be able achieve anything near what its grandfather did.
Does that mean that it will be a terrible car? Of course not! Matt from Matt Maran Motoring, an automotive YouTube channel, summed it up best in one of his weekly news videos. He basically said that the new Supra shouldn’t be looked at as a new Supra, but rather should be seen as a more powerful Toyota 86. I couldn’t agree more. Just about everyone who gets into an Toyota 86 or Subaru BRZ to review it or just to go for a drive almost always comes away extremely satisfied but also wanting a little more power. If you look at that way, the new Supra can and will deliver exactly that.
That isn’t to say that the new car won’t be more expensive than an 86. It will still be a different car than the 86. The possibility also still exists for the car to be a hybrid. All of these things add up to a car that will certainly not be the next Supra. Even if the car is priced like an 86 and there isn’t a hybrid drivetrain, the car is still destined to fail as it still bears the name that very much helped shape a revolution in the 1990’s.
Will the 2019 – we think – Toyota Supra fail? History says that it will, and the current Acura NSX provides us an example of a revived revolutionary figure that expectation destroyed. Though the new car may prove to be fantastic, the pressure and expectation to be the next Supra could prove detrimental. Toyota has chosen to accomplish the impossible by reviving something that should have been honorable preserved in death. The new Supra will fail, unless Toyota does, in fact, accomplish the impossible and successfully reinvent the mindset and expectations of the name “Supra”. What we must remember is that the impossible has been done before… Good luck Toyota. You’re going to need it.
–SWF
