Propelled to fame by the immortal 2JZ engine - 1993 Toyota Supra MK4 Review
3Later this week we drive the revived, fifth-gen Supra. Until then, we're remembering what made the last one so great.
From the March 1994 Issue
Amazing how this Toyota Supra changes its look as you get to know it. At first, it's a functional shape at best, obviously meant to go with the flow, all smooth contours, ready to slide through its surroundings, nothing there to snag onto anything. Nothing about it suggests a wowee automobile. And you sure wouldn't ask to see it in brown.
But then you take the first drive. And by golly, it slides by all your usual objections, too. Although it's only 50.2 inches tall, you just fall in. No bump of the noggin. Because the door opening is cut high into the roof.
Once inside, you fit perfectly. The seat track has tremendous travel, more than nine inches, and the seat hugs just right. It doesn't need any of those adjusting levers and switches that you can never get quite right anyway, and it doesn't have them.
The driver's office is arranged with exceptional astuteness. Everything is close, but not too close. Nothing rubs on you—not the console, not the bottom of the dash. The controls that are not located on column stalks are turned toward you so they're easy to see—even the window buttons, even the ignition keyhole. The HVAC and radio controls are above your knee, high up, where they can be seen and reached, and the all-important power socket for the radar detector is up in the dash where the cord won't get tangled in things that are none of its business.
Instrumentation is incredibly legible, aggressively simple—three big, round dials. The tach is front and center, speedo to the right, and a combination temperature and fuel gauge on the left. Warning lights monitor everything else.
The view out the windshield is broad and inviting. In the mirror, it's reasonably unrestricted behind, too. And the leather covers on the wheel, shifter, and brake handle feel good.
You get safety and convenience. Toyota found room for both a real glovebox and a passenger airbag. There's also a reasonably large lidded compartment in the console between the front buckets.
If anything has been overlooked on the master plan, it's cargo capacity. The rear seat is okay for stuff, inadequate for people you like, and the area under the hatchback is wide but shallow, perfect for fast hauls from Domino's.
For the driver and one companion, though, everything's there and perfectly placed. This realization doesn't hit you over the head. You just notice that you're liking the Supra more and more as you spend time with it. It works so well. It wins you over. First thing you know, the exterior appearance seems to make sense. It's, well, smooth and efficient. The drag coefficient of 0.31 is quite good for a car with such wide tires.
For $38,407 as tested, you get a car that's seemingly correct in every way. For that price, you expect luxury. But what does "luxury" mean in a car? Normally, you think of opulence—expanses of tropical wood, wrinkly leather, gizmos that calculate fuel mileage and turn down the stereo when you dial the phone. The Supra is not that kind of luxury car.
But what if you defined luxury from the standpoint of driving excellence: a car that responds correctly, beautifully, rewardingly to your inputs, with no luxo froufrou to distract from the business of driving?
Now we're talking about the Supra. The black interior of the test car is stark, almost industrial, in its mood. The gauges have bold, stark markings. The textures on the dash are muted to the point that you see blackness and little else. Big black speakers mounted high on the door panels look exactly like what they are. The seats are upholstered in black cloth. They absorb the light. On a scan of the cockpit, you hardly notice them.
This car is stern in its personality. No frivolous gestures, neither visual nor behavioral. Everything about it is calibrated for confident motoring. The controls are solid. Response is deliberate. The power comes on like liquid speed. When you engage the clutch, there's nary a shudder. Just motion. Press the throttle for more. The sound is smooth, a purr rather than individual pulses of combustion, and it purrs all the way to the 6800-rpm redline. The clutch is firm and the shift feels well oiled, and you get new speeds exactly on demand. Speeds. There's no sense of anything as coarse as gears down in the tunnel.
The suspension is taut, well damped, tremendously composed; it never wastes motion. Yet the ride is fluid rather than harsh. And there's no kawop on impact from the low-profile Goodyears. Each bump checks in with a mild ringing of the stiff structure, then it's forgotten.
The 220-hp, premium-fuel, DOHC inline-six and five-speed are shared with the Lexus SC300, yet that car and the Supra seem unrelated. The Lexus feels like a luxury car, albeit an exceptionally agile one. The Supra feels like an athlete.