No BMW, no Toyota Supra

Toyota would not have built the new Supra without BMW. The business case was just too hard.

That’s the verdict of the Assistant Chief Engineer of the new A90 Toyota Supra project , Masayuki Kai, who at this week’s engineering preview of the new sports coupe stated that without the collaboration with the German marque, the new sports coupe would not have been built.

“If we had not accepted this [the collaborative project] then there is no Supra at all,” Kai told motoring.com.au.

“We believe we should be happy that we could revive Supra, even if the engine is no longer the 2JZ and not a Japanese engine.”

Kai’s reference to 2JZ reflects the original twin-turbo Toyota powerplant of the last A80 generation of Supra.

A favourite of JDM tuners, the inline six has a reputation for huge horsepower numbers. It sits at the heart of the Supra legend for many.

Instead, the new car is powered by an inline single twin-scroll turbocharged six that hails from Munich. Indeed, most if not all the hardware in the new car is sourced from what insiders described as a “BMW shopping list”.

Toyota and BMW commenced collaboration on the platform that would underpin the new Supra and Z4 as early as 2012. The initial negotiation created the ‘building blocks’ for the car and cemented the packaging.

Reporting directly to program boss and father of the GT86, Tetsuya Tada, fluent German-speaking Kai has been based in Munich at BMW since 2014.

“What we decided jointly is packaging: like where does the driver sit; where is fuel tank; engine position; where is A-pillar for example. And this defined the wheelbase, track base and so on – all of the key dimensions of the car.

“Until that time, we were always discussing and aligning together, but from that point on we completely separated [development] and we did not have any exchanges any more,” he explained.

Kai says the collaboration is indicative that the sports car business model is problematic for mass-market brands in today’s automotive marketplace.

“It is so difficult to make a feasible business model [for a sports car], so we were lucky that we found a good partner like BMW,” he stated.

He says that he believes that difficulty applies equally to the German marque.

“Without BMW, we could not revive the Supra and this also applies visa-versa for BMW, we believe,” Kai stated.

“Sports car need a lot of specific parts which you cannot use for other family cars, but the volume [of sales] is quite restricted. So, if you want to make a sports car it is very expensive and you need to find a partner to share the cost.

“We believe this is the only way to develop [sports] cars,” he said.

There is one rare exception, however, says Kai – Mazda. Indeed, the Toyota engineer praised Mazda’s ability to develop its small, cost-effective bespoke sports car, the MX-5

“[It is very hard] Unless you are having a long, long history like Mazda -- having never stopped developing the MX-5.

“We believe Mazda has their own knowhow -- how to develop a sports car, at small volume but cheap.

“Still we don’t have any knowhow of how they [Mazda] can keep producing the MX-5 for so long,” he said.