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Is that a Supra? Everyone and anyone knows the Supra! If you haven’t been acquainted, you’re about to have your mind blown by possibly the coolest car ever made and our dream car.
If you honestly haven’t a clue what a Toyota Supra is, just imagine the first time you figured out you can have BBQ sauce as the base for your pizza, then you could add all the meats and 100 cheeses. Needless to say we love Supras.. and pizza.
In this post we will give you a brief history of the Supra, going through the ages, why the Supra is such an icon, how much you can expect to pay for a Supra and some crazy power ideas.
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The History Of The Supra
Back in 1979, Toyota decided they were going to release a new car, a car that they never knew was going to have the impact it has had on car enthusiasts around the world. This car was the Celica Supra and was the start of something big.
Turn to the pages of 1986, the Celica Supra is no more! Instead, the Celica and the Supra were released as separate cars. The Celica was a front wheel drive while the Supra kept its back tire burning fun. Aswel as that, the Supra got a new engine, the 7M-GTE turbocharged, twin cam, inter cooled monster, pushing out 230bhp.
The mk3 supra was taking over the world and was entering in the WRC, European touring car championships, Japanese group A racing and group A rallying.
Then BAM 1993 rolls around at the Chicago motor show and Toyota reveal the holy grail. The Mk4 Supra, aka the A80, was now running with the heart of the JZ series of engines and although Toyota had to limit what they said their power output was, actual power of these 3.0 straight 6 twin turbos was probably closer to 320bhp.
That brings us to the present day. It’s been 17 years since they finished producing the Supra and now brings a new era of the Supra, the A90 mk5. The long awaited king has returned and despite some hardcore fans being less than satisfied, we believe the king lives on.
All hail Supra!
What Makes The Supra An Icon
How do you make a car an absolute icon? You make it into a movie star of course. Kitt from knight ride, General Lee from dukes of hazard, the deloreon from Back to the Future! They all have one thing in common. Movies.
The Supra was made a star before it hit the big screens though and if anyone remembers the old video game Gran Turismo, you’ll remember saving up to buy a Supra, stick every extra to it and giving it as much bhp as possible. This was the start of my love for the Supra.
Back to the movies. You might remember a little movie known as The Fast and The Furious? Ever heard of it? This car made its debut on the back of a low loader and was cooler than any car from that moment on. The most popular line in that movie is “what’s the retail on one of those?”, “More than you can afford pal, Ferrari.” But we all know what happened.
If it’s not the movies, it’s the YouTube media, the car memes, everything car related eventually comes back to the Supra. Just notice next time you have a conversation with a car guy how the conversation always goes to Supra.
But let’s not lie, what made the car an icon is the 2JZ.
Buying A Supra
Everyone wants a Supra, even the guys with Supras want more Supras. It’s just fact. Finding a good one nowadays is a bit difficult so there may be some work required when you drop on the perfect one.
Personally these are things we would want
- The twin turbo
- Hardtop
- Manual
- Low modifications
- Well maintained
Not much to ask for right? Nope, a lot of models are N/A or single turbo. Which kinda sucks when your looking for some crazy power, but they are still fast and great cars. Just not the one we are after.
These cars are going to be future classics, the prices are already sky-rocketing. In the UK right now to find one with the specifications we want, you will be lucky to find one between £20k and £40k. But if you got the dollar, buy one at the lower end and keep it as an investment as the price will increase in years to come.
Power Increases
Once you have made it in life and you have a Supra on your drive, you can quit the game, you’ve made it. Now all you want is what everyone wants. MORE POWERRR! Hell to the yeah.
So how do you increase power on something that can already keep up with the best of them? Well you can go down the route of a simple remap, but then you might want to consider upgrading other parts of the car too to handle the increase in power.
This might mean upgrading the engine components, turbo, clutch / flywheel, brakes, suspension, tires and wheels. Quite a list, but Supras are great for modifying and you can extract a lot of power out of them because they handle a lot of Boost.
Here are some parts to consider
- Upgraded fuel pump
- Upgraded oil pump
- Iridium spark plugs
- Cone air intake
- Race cams
- Custom exhaust
- Upgraded intercooler
Just to start with, then you can start tinkering with bigger turbos and better internals, but the standard internals should be good up to 600bhp, anything after that you need to consider some supporting mods.
The highest claimed horsepower we have seen to date is one that produces 2400bhp. Hold my beer.
Here’s To The Future
Never the less, the Supra is OUR all time favorite car, it has a fantastic soundtrack, looks out of this world, appreciates in value, can be tuned to be faster than most super cars and more, can be drifted, dragged, rallied, slammed. It’s just the ultimate JDM sports car.
Now with the mk5 Supra coming to play, there is no doubt a challenge on everyone’s hands to top what Toyota and BMW have created. Despite it having the BMW B58 engine and not being entirely Toyota, we still love it, just not as much as a mk4 A80 Supra with a 2JZ-GTE 3.0 straight 6. Nothing beats that.
If you have anything you feel you want to add to this post, there’s probably a lot we missed, we can talk about Supras all day long, just drop a comment below and we will get back to you.
Keep Boosting
Kevin
Kevin@boostandcamber.com
Founder of Boost And Camber
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