At MotorTrend, we endeavor to be extremely thorough with all the vehicles that we get our hands on. Every car we test is taken to the track to get the usual run of numbers: 0–60 mph, quarter mile, figure eight, etc. But every time we drive a vehicle, we report the horsepower and torque numbers that the automaker provides. On a few occasions, however, we feel compelled to take a deeper look at those numbers to verify the veracity of those figures. And that’s exactly what we did with the new 2020 Toyota Supra. We took it to the dyno to find out how much power it’s actually getting to the wheels.
Toyota claims that the 2020 Supra’s BMW-sourced 3.0-liter turbocharged inline-six engine produces 335 hp and 365 lb-ft of torque. However, our dynamometer came up with some different numbers—especially for peak torque. The Supra delivered 332 hp and 387 lb-ft to the rear wheels according to our dyno testing, which took place at World Motorsports in Torrance, California, using a Mustang eddy-current chassis dynamometer equipped with a high-powered fan to provide realistic cooling air to the radiators, simulating a real-world experience. These figures also factor in a weather correction.
For our test, we ran the Supra in sixth gear because its 1.00:1 ratio is the transmission’s most efficient. The horsepower number that the dyno read was just off from what Toyota claims, but the torque figure is considerably higher. What’s more, the numbers that Toyota promises are taken at the crank, which doesn’t account for the frictional and hydraulic losses occurred in the transmission and differential. Conventional wisdom suggests these could amount to roughly 15 percent for a driveline like the Supra’s, which would suggest our Supra was making 390 hp and 455 lb-ft at the crank.
Why we have this discrepancy is anybody’s guess. It’s fair to say that this Supra is an early build preproduction car, which might have a more carefully, partially hand-built engine. It might not have the very latest calibration. It could mean that this press car has been tuned to produce extremely impressive performance numbers in hopes of selling more cars. Or maybe BMW provided the wimpier 335/365 calibration and Toyota managed to go in and “chip” it up to nearer the torque that BWM delivers in its M2 Competition and M3 with this engine.
In any case, the Supra and the M2 Competition perform extremely close in the 0–60 run and the quarter-mile test. It took 3.9 seconds for the Supra to get from 0 to 60 mph, while the Bimmer made it in 4.0 seconds. In the quarter mile, the Supra crossed the line in 12.5 seconds at 111.2 mph, and the M2 did it in 12.4 seconds at 114.7 mph. Stay tuned to find out whether future Supras manage to match this one’s blistering performance.
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