If the Supra is a BMW, does that make 2JZ M3s canon?

I asked some friends and followers what is it about the new 2020 Toyota Supra that they don’t like. What comes next will be a summary of what each person had to say about the Supra, but just in case you haven’t seen it, here’s video from the launch below.

1. Shmee ordered one
2. They launched it as automatic only
3. It would have been near impossible to live up to the hype
4. I like it…sure, it’s not the same in ethos of the old car, but I’m sure it will be pretty good to drive
5. It’s a BMW

To which I answer

1. SHMEEEEEE!!!!!!
2. I agree that this wasn’t a great way to launch the car, even if they said a manual was likely in the future, there’s no set confirmation.
3. You know, interestingly enough, BMW understood this concept with their M1 and essentially retired it’s jersey.
4. This is my view as well. To add, I’d like to think of this as a Supra that you can actually drive so you don’t have to drive your pristine A80² in the rain.
5. This is the issue right here

Bozi Tatarevic did a thorough write up on exactly just how much of this car is BMW (you can read it for yourself here). So why is there so much BMW in your Toyota? We have to rewind back to 2012 where BMW and Toyota began a partnership. Partnerships in the car industry is nothing new and Toyota usually revels in it. Being the king of hybrid vehicle technology, Toyota agreed to help BMW with their hybrid tech. In exchange, BMW would offer it’s diesel engines to Toyota so that they could use them in the European market. BMW wasn’t doing the hybrid thing so well on their own as evidenced in their first attempt, the ActiveHybrid 7 (2010-2012). I have my own personal experience with one you can read here in this tweet thread. In addition to unreliability, it really wasn’t that efficient, especially since it had almost the same disastrous mileage as the base 740i. Even Car & Driver¹ recommended the base 740i over the ActiveHybrid. It was a hot mess. But with help from Toyota, BMW was able to launch the now successful “i” division with the i8 and i3. Both been lauded for being a great electric option, especially for those who do not wish to go fully electric, yet. So what about Toyota and their new BMW diesel engines? They got them, but in 2014, a little thing called Dieselgate happened and the market for diesel cars went to shit. So did Toyota get a good run out of them? I don’t know, but it didn’t matter because former diesel owners rushed back to hybrids, and who was the God of Hybrids? Toyota. Toyota soon after stopped selling diesel cars in Europe and because they didn’t spend millions developing an engine that they had to throw away, they ended up not losing much. Win-win Toyota (not so much BMW). These unpredictable shifts in the market make partnerships more desirable in today’s automobile market since the risks aren’t as high. Regardless of the diesel mess, phase 2 of this partnership deal was for BMW and Toyota to work together on a shared platform. The new platform would serve the next BMW Z4 and an all new Toyota Supra. Keep in mind, the Toyota Supra has been Toyota’s pride and joy for most of the 80s and 90s and had remained dead since 2002. Hope of a revival got all the fanbois excited (myself included)

The new Z4 launched first. I liked it. It was a trimmed down, sportier version of the previous generation Z4. Much closer in design to the original Z4 (unlike the now bloated E89). It looked like a great platform to build the new sporty Supra from. But, as the Supra came closer to being launched, it all felt a bit too much like BMW was doing all the work. It soon began to fall apart as the fanbois didn’t want their beloved Toyota turning into a rebadged BMW.

So why we not ok with this partnership?

The biggest flaw with partnerships is that it dilutes the brand. People buying the new Mercedes-Benz X-Class won’t be too pleased that their luxury “name brand” pick-up shares most of it’s interior bits with a Nissan. Sports cars really get scorned the most for this, since this is where pride takes centre stage. Now, this isn’t Toyota’s first partnership to help develop a sports car, and they’ve usually gotten away with it so far because the car was still mostly Toyota.

The MR2 was rumored to get some input from Lotus after Toyota helped teached them how to make money and stop being bankrupt. Still a Toyota.

A lot of Toyota’s performance (G branded) engines received head designs from Yamaha (in particular the 4AGE, 3SGE, 2ZZGE, JZ). Still a Toyota.

And most recently the Toyota GT86/Subaru BRZ collaboration project.
– The engine was Subaru, but it had Toyota’s direct injection technology.
-The transmission was Toyota
-It is built at a Subaru factory
-The interior bits had a good amount of Subaru in there
-The spirit of the car was from the Toyota AE86
It was an all new car that felt equal parts Toyota and Subaru. Just as much as this car was split between Toyota and Subaru, we can see that critics and fanbois alike were split in opinions (I’d like to say it still leaned on the positive side)

Now back to Bozi Tatarevic (again you can read it here) and other journalists who have slowly come to unravel that this isn’t a Toyota/BMW collab, but rather a Toyota branded BMW. The engine, transmission, suspension, brakes and most of the interior is all BMW. In fact all Toyota is doing is waiting for BMW to finish the Z4, pop a roof on it, do some suspension tweaks and glue on a Toyota badge. Ok so, it’s mostly BMW, that isn’t bad, BMW is elite people right? They do sport cars right? It’s bad, but not so bad, the issue lies in what the Supra title means for Toyota. It’s not a sports car any more, the Supra was a halo car for Toyota, or at least not anymore³.

What is a halo car you may ask? It is the pinnacle of what a manufacturer can do. It is the car they use as a base to go racing and bring home trophies. It is the car with all the technical and go fast bits that all other cars in the family draw from (so you can sell Civic hybrids telling people its the same tech that powers the 300kph NSX even if they only share 5 screws and a washer). It is the car that gets little kids excited in your ‘Brand’, and in the near future, into your dealerships.

• Honda has the NSX
• Nissan has the GT-R
• Mazda had the RX-7
• Chevrolet has the Corvette
• Ford has the GT
• Dodge had the Viper

Know what all of the above have in common? They’re all ground up designs that excel in something unique to the company. The company built the engine, developed it and the rest of the car for years to make it unique to their own brand. After years of hard work, with pride, the manufacturer placed their badge on the hood to show the world that this is the best that they could do. Up until the A80 Supra², the Supra was this for Toyota. They did a lot of work (with some help from Lotus) and had a lot to be proud for. I could, and many others have, write to the moon and back about the excellence of the 2JZ engine that powered the A80 Supra. No one has can say the same about any BMW engine (except the M10). Today, we see that the A90² isn’t the best Toyota has to offer, it’s the best BMW could do to help out Toyota as a partner.

In conclusion, we’re mad that the Supra really isn’t a true Halo car. Toyota really missed the mark on what a Halo car really is, meanwhile, sister company Lexus is on point. The LFA was a ground up, expensive engineering exercise that showed that Toyota Lexus could build a world beating, over engineered, mind bending supercar that sounded like someone let loose an F1 car on the street (never mind that it was more expensive and slower than a comparable Ferrari). It was the culmination of the lessons it learned in F1 (which perfectly explains the poor performance to price ratio). The sorta replacement LC500 isn’t as extreme as the LFA and Lexus was able to take the lessons it learnt from the LFA to build a perfect replacement for the Lexus SC (Lexus’ ultra posh Supra alternative built around the same time as the A80).

So the solution? In my honest opinion, I think we’d be less mad if Toyota took the LC, lost 500kg (maybe 100-200kg is more realistic) still used the same BMW inline 6 but use the LC500h’s hybrid tech, but with a supercapacitor instead of a battery (as seen in their TS030 and TS040 race cars). Toyota started this relationship with BMW under the premise that they were the kings of hybrid tech, so why not use this and show up the Honda NSX? Own up to the title. The fans would still be mad that it’s a hybrid Supra, but they’d probably be less mad that it’s actually a Toyota. Toyota has told us that an A90² GRMN Supra is coming. If this package means more Toyota parts, then I think we’d then accept the A90 as our true Supra.

¹Car and Driver is well known as BMW’s biggest fans and are strongly biased towards them, allegedly

²A80 is the name given to Supra’s built from 93-02, A90 is the name of the new one

³I know Toyota said that they are building the GR Sports Hypercar, which really is their true Halo car, but that is so out of reach, chances are some of us may never see one in person.