2021 Toyota Supra meets the BMW M2 CS: the Mk4's real successor | Jason Cammisa on the Icons Ep. 01

Vroom, Vroom, Vroom! Today we talk about Supra. And no, we are not a little late to the conversation. There are many things they haven't told you. That thing wiped out the Supra's entire nameplate! And that only exists because BMW is in love with the Toyota Mirai. Phew! And then there's this BMW M2 CS, which looks like it has nothing to do with the Supra. But it is so, and I'm about to tell you why. The Mk5 Supra is not new. You know everything about it. It's a BMW Z4 with Toyota styling. For

2021

, it will receive some subtle suspension revisions, but also the B58 engine that was already in the Z4.

And that means it makes... 47 more horsepower. Not that it

real

ly needed more horsepower. It was already stupid fast. Alright, let's leave the foreplay and get to it. 4...3...2...1... That thing makes 1000 horsepower and shoots flames... just like any other Mk4 these days. But is this thing available out of the box? It's an amazing G-force generator! The power is present and accounted for! And grab! Balance! Brakes! But there is a problem. And his initials are M2. So you want to play, huh? Oh man. Well, they are even on the straights. I guess that's what the weight will do! Oh my god, I can't get away from him!

Alright, no competition in the corners... ...that M2 has a lot more grip than it's right above me. I have less lag and an automatic with lower gears, so I beat him coming out of the corner. But in the corners? Hmm. Careless, Jason! Careless. Oh man. He's just over me. That M2 has a lot more gip that keeps up with me and is playing! This is not going to end well. I'm afraid I'll have to call before there are BMW parts everywhere. The fact is that the M2 CS outperforms the Supra in every performance metric. And it does so in a much more usable package.

Take your average cell phone and cut it in half. That's the difference in length between those two cars, and yet the M2 manages to fit a back seat big enough for your two snotty brats, and 40% more cargo space for all your stuff when your partner kicks you out. For spending $85,000 on a stupid little car! In fact, you can see out of the M2 and can get in and out without getting a concussion, something that is completely impossible to do in the Supra. And the best: it comes with a manual transmission! ...and warranty. This is not a new car either.

The M2 is in its final year and the CS is its final variant. Now beefed up with the M3's 444-horsepower engine, it makes a hell of a noise. It has carbon ceramic brakes; carbon fiber hood and roof; and lightweight seats that probably weigh... four pounds more. With a wheelbase nine inches longer than the Supra, you won't be sitting on the rear axle. This way you won't feel like you're driving a skid steer. This is not only the best BMW car of the moment. This is BMW! It's a direct descendant of the 2002... ...a tall, dumb, obnoxious two-door sedan.

It is *not* a sports car. For the record, BMW has never made a great sports car. BMW's "sports cars" are incredibly good... losing comparison tests. Z3, Z4, Z4, and then Z4 again... And even (I hate to say it) Z1 and Z8. It's because BMW, with the exception of the M1 supercar, has always deconstructed a sports sedan and packaged its components into a sports car *looking* package. That gives you all the drawbacks of a sports car without any of the benefits. All thorn, no rose. That's a very different thing from building a sports car from scratch. And that's why this two-seater weighs 1,100 pounds more than a Mazda Miata. (Which also seats two.) Look, if your sports car is so soundproofed that you have to broadcast fake engine noise through the speakers just to hear it running, you've failed the sports car report.

At least in the Z4, I can put the top down and then I can hear those straight sixes in a row! And it sounds great... and look, everything is better in a convertible. Aside from the inherent joys of open-top motoring (and that straight-six engine), there's no joy here. Capacity is not joy. That is the biggest problem with the Zupra (of both). They are mechanically identical to cars that have

real

usability, but cost less. Cars like the 3 Series or even the X3. Is it any wonder that the X3 outsells the Series 3, which in turn outsells the Z4 plus Supra, like five times?

No! The only reason you would buy a Z4 is because it is a convertible. And the only reason you would buy a Supra is because of its looks. And that's a pretty interesting story. ...a story that begins here at Toyota's CALTY design research center, the birthplace of the FT-1, one of the most spectacular concept cars you'll ever see. It was designed by the president of CALTY, before becoming the Supra. Okay, take off your masks, right? I feel like my bra has just been taken off. I feel very, very happy right now. And naked. Where did this design come from?

We went back and looked at the iconic Supras and we also looked at the 2000 GT, which was one of our incredibly beautiful sports cars at the time. And that car also had an inline-six, so it's very much in the Supra DNA lineage. The FT-1 is Supra, without restrictions. ...exactly what this car would have been like if its design didn't have to be covered in the hard points of a BMW Z4. A hard spot is a critical engineering point that cannot be moved and is usually set in stone in the early stages of a car's development. The most obvious are things like where the wheels are, where the engine is, and where the driver sits.

But there are literally hundreds of other points around which the car body needs to be covered. A hard point is bad for designers. This is what engineering brings. And this could be a critical point based on a manufacturing requirement. It could be a sticky point based on a safety requirement... a sticky point to keep the car within a certain size. So we have a number of difficult points that we face when we design a car. A good example of a fixed point is the top of the shock tower. This determines the geometry and amount of travel of the front suspension and cannot be moved or the entire car needs to be redesigned.

That means: this is where the top of the fender will be. FT-1 is very stretched, it's very fluid and it has some elegance and beauty to it, I think. We had to grind it into a more compressed ratio, and then beyond that we had tough spots we had to deal with for the bumpers, engine placement, and hood positions. It was a great challenge. One of the most controversial design features of the Supra is this flared rear fender, and that's because it reaches all the way to the door. In fact, if you open the door, you can see where it is and then where the flare is stuck on the outside.

The same here in the body. This is a flare. The body of the car is really here. Because? Because the latch is the strong point of the Z4. Let's not forget. This is not a Toyota with a BMW supplied engine. This is a BMW supplied by BMW. With a Toyota badge. And BMW will do what it wants. Including not giving Toyota its best parts. Do you want proof? If that's not the biggest in the world, from BMW to Toyota, I don't know what is. Compare and contrast the Z4's speaker. I told you. It's a tie...this year... ...now that this thing has the full 382 hp version of this engine.

Last year I had 335. Why? Well, it was BMW who told Toyota. The other thing I notice right away, especially on the highway, is that the Supra's steering is much better than the Z4's. It has a perfect feeling of being in a straight line, it even has a certain feeling of being centered and the effort curve is natural. Who knew BMW's chassis development team could actually tune power steering? As long as Toyota engineers tell them what to do. Any differences are shades of gray. Must be! These are mechanically identical cars. This thing becomes like it weighs nothing!

This is because its center of gravity is lower than that of the GT86. Which isn't even a Toyota. That's a Subaru. It's easy to criticize Toyota for putting its badges on non-Toyota cars, and that's because Toyota was the largest car company in the world for most of the previous twenty years. Of course they have enough money to develop a sports car. But let's talk about what happened the last time they did it. Toyota's original Supra started out as little more than a six-cylinder trim level for the four-cylinder Celica. Consequently, the price skyrocketed, as did the weight, to the point that the Celica Supra was barely faster than the four-cylinder Celica.

Complaints about being too heavy and too expensive stopped when the Mk2 Celica Supra came out. The Supra was still a six-cylinder version of the Celica. It was still too expensive and too heavy, but this time, both the car-buying public and magazines decided it was worth it. Car and Driver magazine spent a year with this brawny-looking thing and covered it enthusiastically, using words like smitten... Jaguar E-Type and... "a legend." Well, they were right about that. That praise stopped when the third generation debuted. This was the first Supra that wasn't just a modified Celica. (The Celica had switched to a front-wheel drive platform.) The rear-drive Supra was finally its own model.

It was still too expensive... ...but it wasn't just "too heavy." It gained an outrageous £500 over the last car. That didn't go well. But by adding a turbocharger to the Supra, Toyota gave it enough power to offset the weight increase. And it set the stage for the absolutely legendary Mk4 Supra, which shed a few kilos thanks to lightweight material and came in two strengths: naturally aspirated and sequential twin-turbo versions of the world's most famous straight-six engine: the 2JZ. And the Mk4 Supra also came with a V8! ...in the Lexus SC400. Those two cars shared the same basic platform; the Lexus had a slightly longer wheelbase.

But the fact that the Mk4 Supra was sold like a Lexus should tell us something about the

More, please! Shit... I just want to clear things up so I can do it again! I think I'm...

SALE. It could have been a supercar at a budget price, but supercar buyers didn't seem to want a discount. And that left no one wanting the Supra. Its sales figures were abysmal, peaking at about a tenth of previous generations. Towards the end, Toyota reduced the effective base price by a third... ...and no one cared. Sales of the Supra were so bad that it killed the business of a Toyota sports car. and then the LFA, which was losing money, buried it. So can Toyota be blamed for not making another sports car? No. And by the way, BMW wasn't going to make another Z4 until they made an indecent proposal.

They called everyone Toyota. We'll build you a Supra... ...if you let us look under the apron of that beautiful Toyota Mirai! Phew! But BMW needed hydrogen fuel cell technology for a variant of the X5 that will go into production in 2022. And, by the way, an added bonus! The additional sales volume of the Toyota variant would sell enough Z4s to pay for the development of the entire project. For Toyota, what is the risk? A group of journalists make fun of them for having a BMW in the showroom? There's already a Mazda and a Subaru there. But the advantage for Toyota is clear: a guy walks in, sees a Supra sliding around the corner and says, "man, if they could build that thing, I'll take my Yaris with a sport package!" ...happily unaware that the Yaris is a Mazda and the Supra is a BMW.

One key point, though: Toyota sells another car. And that is the goal. The BMW Supra is a much sportier, more spectacular, more interesting, more spectacular two-seater GT, with better handling and better steering than BMW's own version. And that is a truly impressive feat. Is it a true

successor

to the Mk4 Supra? No, it beats sports sedans, not supercars. But the existence of this carproduced two sports cars that the world would not have otherwise had. And just like that, the Supra makes the world a better place. ...except, of course, there's an even better Supra on sale today.

Think about the recipe for what makes a Mk4. It has a 3.0-liter inline six-cylinder engine with twin turbos that can take about three times the factory power and not explode; a manual transmission; a back seat; it's too heavy; a little too expensive; and attracts a small number of people. And it gives you a smile the size of a supercar. Hello, M2. You knew the

successor

to the Mk4 Supra was a BMW... ...but it's not the one with the Toyota badge. It's that one. Oh yes I did! In fact, I said that the BMW M2 makes for a better Supra than the Supra itself, and if you think that's an outrageous claim, I'm just getting started! ...and you won't know unless you subscribe to Hagerty's YouTube channel and click the notification bell or, you know, follow me on Instagram @JasonCammisa or do whatever...

But here's the thing: You could be the cool person who sends the link to all your friends, or you can be the recipient of all your other cool friends' links. Up to you.

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