2020 Toyota GR Supra would’ve cost $100,000 if it wasn’t for BMW

Would you have paid more than $100,000 if the 2020 Toyota GR Supra had a Toyota engine? Thank BMW for making the A90 Supra easier on the wallet.

It isn’t Supra Day. But we do have one more piece of news to share on the 2020 Toyota GR Supra. Jalopnik had a chat the Supra’s chief engineer, Tetsuya Tada and he made an important revelation that may make at least some of the new-gen A90 Supra haters dial down their hatred for the car.

The new Supra did receive some serious flak for being a “parts-bin car”. The chief weapon that the haters had to deploy was the alliance that Toyota forged with BMW which in turn saw the 2020 Toyota GR Supra coming in with a BMW Z4 platform. Not many loved the idea of the JDM being corrupted by the makers of the ultimate driving machine.

“To make the car so expensive would defeat the purpose of a Toyota sports car. That’s why it doesn’t use exotic materials like carbon fiber,” Tada said explaining the reasoning behind opting for the BMW assistance. When the Supra revival was being planned Toyota had three options – electrification, build a brand-new inline six or borrowing an engine from another manufacturer.

The first two were risky and not cost-effective. The Supra fanbase is a loyal and passionate one and they’ll annihilate Toyota for turning a JDM icon into an electric car. Making a new performance engine from scratch will end up making the car expensive and even take the price tag to a $100,000 territory. The only viable option left was to take the powerplant and underpinning from the Germans. And though that didn’t go down well with some of the fans, the end product is a relatively affordable sports car with respectable performance.

Source: Jalopnik