Goodwood, England - Toyota’s all-new Supra is easily 2018’s most anticipated car.
The upcoming sports car has been teased a thousand times in prototype, racing and concept form, but it has yet to be fully revealed in the flesh along with all the other juicy facts. That apparently happens in September.
Though Toyota has admitted that the new rear-wheel-drive sports car will have a six-cylinder engine, now it appears that this won’t be the only option.
At the Goodwood Festival of Speed this past weekend, the Supra's chief engineer Testsuya Tada told
that a more affordable four-cylinder variant would also be offered.
Given that the Supra will share its chassis and six-cylinder motor with the next-generation Z4 through a tie-up with BMW, it’s only logical that the aforementioned four-pot would be BMW’s 2-litre turbopetrol.
This theory is backed up by a leaked document from gearbox manufacturer ZF, published by Road & Track on its website, which also reveals that the Supra 2-litre will be tuned to 195kW, while the 3-litre will produce 250kW.
BMW will offer a wider range of outputs in its Z4 Roadster, with the addition of a 135kW 2.0 and 280kW Z4, according to the ZF document. All mentioned variants will be mated to ZF’s eight-speed autobox, of course.
Although the four-cylinder Supra will be a more affordable alternative to the much-hyped sixer, don't expect it to come cheap.
In an interview with
earlier this year, Toyota Europe’s R&D vice president Gerald Killmann said that the Supra will “not be a cheap car”.
“There will be a clear difference between the GT86 and Supra,” Killmann stated. "The GT86 remains the affordable sports car, the Supra becomes the performance model.”