It’s clearly BMW-derived, but not lifted straight out of the Z4
Toyota Supra fans are split on the upcoming car that will bear the iconic name. On one hand, it sounds like it will be a true sports car complete with a capable chassis and a turbocharged inline-six engine, but on the other hand, sharing the bulk of its parts with the Z4 could make it more BMW than Toyota. These latest spy shots won’t ease those concerns much, but they at least show that the Supra won’t be a complete copy/paste job, as the interior looks different from its BMW counterpart.
This Supra mule’s steering wheel isn’t the same one we saw in a Z4 prototype last year, and if you squint, you can barely see the outline of the Toyota emblem through the tape covering the center, hinting that this is likely the production steering wheel. But even if the design is different from the Z4’s, it still doesn’t look very Toyota. The controls are laid out more like a BMW, with a scroll wheel on the right and buttons arranged in rows rather than in a round pattern as Toyota likes. The turn signal stalk also looks like something you’d find in a BMW, as does the electronic shifter, which could control a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. The driver is covering up the gauge cluster in these photos, but we can see it will get digital readouts for fuel, coolant temperature, and engine revs. The center display is likely configurable to relay a number of different stats.
From the outside, not much has changed since the last time we saw the Supra. The car is once again testing at the Nürburgring, and it looks to be wearing aftermarket wheels—perhaps to test different performance wheel and tire combos. The tester we spotted last month wore wheels that looked closer to production-spec.
As we previously reported, it’ll be a while before we see the Supra road car. Toyota confirmed that the production Supra will debut in the first half of 2019, or nearly a full year after the GR Supra Racing concept bowed in Geneva. We’ll reserve judgment on BMW’s influence on the cabin until we can see it in full, but we hope the Supra’s interior is as distinctive as its exterior.
Photo source: CarPix