We Say Goodbye to the Toyota Supra (Again) - And No One Cares

Back in my day, it was such a big story that Chevrolet wasn't making a Corvette for the 1983 model year that it was headline-grabbing, interrupt-the-series-finale-of-M*A*S*H-worthy. These days, Toyota discontinues its MkV GR Supra—this one for sale down in Columbus, Ohio, is a 2022—and hardly anyone notices. 

MkV, or "Mark Five", denotes the fifth generation of the Supra, GR is for Toyota's Gazoo Racing division. 

Granted, the Toyota Supra nameplate isn't nearly as famous as the Chevrolet Corvette's not to mention there was a 16-year gap in production of a "Supra". Still though, for a car as amazing as these cars were, you'd think there'd be more of a story here. 

Toyota introduced the fifth generation Supra in 2019 as a 2020 model and sold about 30,400 of them in the U.S. through June 2026. It wasn't poor sales that did it in, though. The BMW Z4, the car with which this generation of the Supra was jointly developed, also ended production. Toyota says fifth generation Supra production ended in spring 2026, while BMW ended Z4 production in March.

BMW and Toyota's collaboration dates to 2012, when the companies agreed to jointly develop architecture and components for a future sports car. Toyota chief engineer Tetsuya Tada has said he was pulled away from the Toyota 86's launch in Spain and sent to BMW's headquarters in Munich to explore whether the two companies could build a sports car together.

Toyota didn't have a lightweight, contemporary rear-wheel-drive platform and high-performance inline-six combination suited to the kind of performance Supra purists would demand. BMW did. The result was a shared architecture underneath two very different cars: the BMW Z4 roadster and Toyota Supra.

Working with BMW also allowed the two companies to share development and engineering costs, making it something of a marriage of convenience. Tada has said developing the Supra entirely on its own would have added years to the project and potentially pushed its price far beyond what Toyota considered appropriate for a Toyota sports car.

As purpose-built, high-performance sports cars go, these cars may just have been the greatest ones ever sold. Aesthetically, in my opinion, they come up way short. They're cool in a way even the sexiest crossovers today simply aren't, but this is not a beautiful car; frankly, it's almost ugly.

Where these cars really fall down is in being anything other than two-passenger performance machines that can rip your retinas from the back of your eyes. They're hard to get in and out of, uncomfortable and cramped, visibility is atrocious, and they're all but useless as overnight road-trip vehicles. Unless you're OK with recycling your clothing—or worse yet, your underwear.

Toyota first introduced the Supra in the U.S. in 1979 as the Celica Supra. It became its own model in 1986, when the third-generation A70 Supra split from the Celica. Toyota changed the sports-car landscape with its A80 Supra in 1993, but it remained a low-volume car in the U.S. and disappeared from the American market after the 1998 model year. Production continued in Japan until 2002.

The MkV's end doesn't necessarily mean the end of the Supra name. Toyota has not announced a successor, but company officials have said a next-generation Supra is a goal.

1982 Toyota Celica Supra - Sideways

You may have heard of Toyota Supra's since Toyota's been selling (a bizarre looking) one built in partnership with BMW since 2019. However, seeing Toyota hasn't made a Celica since 2006, stumbling across a Celica Supra is even more of a what-is-that? I can't tell you the last time I saw one of these in the wild. This is a 1982 Toyota Celica Supra I found in the parking garage of the increasingly snooty and lock-jawed open-air mall near our home here on Cleveland, Ohio's westside. I wish I had taken more pictures of it. 

Yes, Celica Supra. From 1978 through 1986, the Supra was to the Celica, technically Toyota's "pony-car", what the Z28 and Trans Am were to the Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird. Well, that's a bit of a stretch seeing how different a Celica Supra was from a garden-variety Celica but I hope you get the point. A Z28 and Trans Am were "all" Camaro and Firebird whereas Toyota grafted on as much as eight-inches onto the front of a Celica so they could put their six-cylinder engine in. There were other changes as well but the bigger schnozz was the largest and most obvious alteration. 

Hard to fathom it took Toyota almost an entire decade to come up with an answer to Datsun's seminal if not world-changing Z-car. But it did. Datsun, now known as Nissan, introduced the 240Z in 1969, Toyota didn't roll out the first Celica Supra until 1978 and they started importing them to the U.S. in 1979. Although it was more of a luxury grand-tourer than sports car, taste-makers and fashionistas couldn't get enough of them despite their huge front ends (that somehow looked good) no to mention their lordly $10,000+ sticker prices. The Datsun Z-car's performance by the end of the '70's had been softened as well and luxury accouterments and gizmos turned it into sort of a Japanese Chevrolet Monte Carlo. But two-magnificently crafted, sporty Japanese cars to choose from? Yes, please. 

Toyota got serious about making the Supra a real sports car, or more of a one, come 1982. Aggressive styling, a larger, now double-overhead-cam inline-six cylinder engine, independent rear suspension, four-wheel disc brakes, magnificent seats and a five-speed manual in an age of four-speeds made for an out-of-this-world, "affordable" grand-touring car that was more bargain basement Porsche than Camaro or Firebird.  

It was so good it was named Motor Trend's Import Car of the Year for 1982 and made Car and Driver's Best10 list. Heady stuff. 

If there was any issue it was they were expensive; a performance-spec Supra for '82 went out the door for nearly $16,000 when tax and other ancillary charges were tacked on. You could get a loaded Camaro Z28, which was all new for '82 as well, for around $11,000 out the door. But you got what you paid for. 

Frankly, our '82 Supra here was vastly superior to the half-baked '82 Camaro Z28 and Trans Am; a last year for the third-generation or "C3" 1982 Corvette that stickered for around $23,000 at the time as well. So, to the enlightened, well-heeled buyer, the Supra was a terrific if not brilliant buy. It was a much better daily driver than a fourth-generation or C4 Corvette too. 

Toyota ended production for these second-generation Supra's, officially, for 1985, but a surplus of models and a delay in production of the third generation of "Supra's" meant there were two Supra's for 1986. The "old" Supra, still marketed as the Celica Supra and a new model known simply as Supra that shared little if anything with an also new-for-1986, front wheel drive Celica. If that sounds confusing, you're right. Then again, Toyota did so much right back in the 1980's that they could get away with making a marketing faux pas or two. 

Owners of Jaguars, Aston Martin's and BMW's have a nasty habit of parking their toys diagonally taking up two or more spaces at a time in this garage and it irritates me. Especially this time of the year. However, if any car in this garage deserves to be parked sideways at any time without getting a stink eye from yours truly it's this old beauty. 

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