Toyota Supra sold out

The initial run of the Toyota Supra sports car for Australia will be limited to roughly 300 units, carsales has been advised by Toyota Australia spokesman Orlando Rodriguez.

Confirming the new six-cylinder sports car will launch locally in September, Rodriguez revealed that Toyota Australia's allocation is "approximately 300".

"There's going to be limited volumes of that vehicle coming into the country," Toyota Australia's Senior Public Affairs Specialist for the Supra said, explaining that "the global production volumes are not that high."

"Approximately 300 vehicles will go on sale in the first 12 months. After that we'll obviously try to increase and improve the supply to Australia, but initially that's what we're looking at, and after the first 12 months we'll let natural demand take over.

"That's quite a low number for the size of our market. If we could get our hands on more I'm sure we'd sell more..."

Rodriguez said that to date, Toyota Australia has received 5000 registrations of interest in the new sports car. That speaks to the money-paying customers exceeding the car's supply in the short term.

"There'll be a constant pool of demand," Rodriguez observed.

And with just 280 Toyota dealers around the nation, a Supra's presence in the showroom might be fleeting rather than lingering.

"We'll tend to be prioritising those dealers... where the market's going to be."

Jointly developed with BMW for the German company's new Z4, the Toyota Supra is anticipated to arrive in the local market from September, possibly priced up to around $100,000.

According to Rodriguez, the Toyota Supra in Australia is expected to undercut the six-cylinder BMW Z4 on price, but BMW's Z4 here in four-cylinder form is likely to be priced lower still.

Toyota Australia has effectively ruled out the four-cylinder Supra that surfaced back in January. It certainly won't be launched in September with the twin-scroll-turbocharged six-cylinder model.

"At the moment... [the four-cylinder Supra] is going to be on limited release around some areas, in other regions, but it's not something we're going to be getting."

Rodriguez left the door open for the four-cylinder model at some point in the future, but "at the moment we really want to just focus on the performance hero, which is that six-cylinder [model]."

The six-cylinder Toyota Supra will produce 250kW and 500Nm for a 0-100km/h time of 4.3 seconds, provided the standard eight-speed ZF automatic transmission is set up with the car's launch function enabled. Traction will be handled by an electro-hydraulic active differential.

The Supra promises to be dynamically surefooted away from the straight-ahead as well, with torsional rigidity to match or even exceed that of the Lexus LFA. Additionally, the Supra's centre of gravity – with an inline six-cylinder powerplant fitted – will be lower than that of the smaller 86 sports car. And finally, the wheelbase-to-track ratio is 1.55:1, which is shorter than that of the Porsche 911.

With a specification like that, no wonder Toyota Australia has more orders than it can supply.