Motor Trend - USA (2020-09)

“Our evaluations have been hindered by

stay-at-home orders, but early on, we’ve

experienced a mixed bag of delight and

disappointment.” Chris Walton

Service life:

3 mo/1,769 miles • Avg Fuel Econ: 27.1 mpg

Avg CO2 0.72 lb/mi Energy cons 125 kW-hr/100 mi Unresolved problems Dash light
dimmer switch Maintenance cost $0 Normal-wear cost $0 Base price $54,945
As tested $56,565 EPA City/Hwy/Comb Fuel Econ: 24/31/26 mpg

The Supra

comfortably

holds six

shopping bags.

And there’s no

way for these

bags to slide

around and spill.

MT GARAGE

76 MOTORTREND.COM SEPTEMBER 2020

tained an average 27 mpg, slightly better

than the EPA’s 26 mpg combined rating.

We still haven’t tested this Supra, but it

feels as potent as the last one we tested,

which ran from 0 to 60 in just 3.9 seconds.

It’s as fast as it looks, maybe faster.

I still love the hatchback’s ability to

accommodate half a dozen shopping

bags. Yes, I wish it had an external hatch

release or bumper-kick protocol, but the

reasonably tight quarters mean the bags

stay essentially where they were placed.

A

s fate would have it, we took

delivery of our long-term 2020

Toyota Supra at the moment we

all went into lockdown. This means that

since then, we’ve logged no commuter

miles and no road trips, and only 300

miles have been added to its odometer. I

have some observations nonetheless.

With so few on the road,

the Supra still elicits questions as if it were

a Ferrari. “Is that the new Supra? How do

you like it? Is it fast?” The $56,565 Supra

has a celebrity status that outshines its

actual place in the automotive land-

scape. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced

this from such a readily available car.

Even the Honda Civic Type R didn’t

receive this amount of attention. Each

trip to the grocery store, gas station, or

take-out restaurant turned into a Q&A

with masked car enthusiasts. The Supra

really is the celebrity it deserves to be.

Since

its arrival and thanks to largely open

roads, our Supra has main-

I’ve already mentioned

how dim the instrument panel and central

display are, but the problem seems to be

more inherent than previously thought.

The car’s dimmer switch is inoperable;

it doesn’t change the illumination of

the dashboard at all. We’ll ask Toyota

to address this on the car’s first visit for

service in the future.

Honestly, driving the Supra is

a mixed bag of emotions and enthu-

siasm. I love how capable and quick

it is, yet I’m not in love with it. The rear

suspension in particular isn’t optimal. The

rebound damping is too abrupt. The initial

impact is well damped, but the resulting

hop thereafter is not. Apparently, this

shortcoming was addressed for 2021.

According to features editor Christian

Seabaugh, Toyota has retuned the

chassis and damper tuning, among other

things: “The end goal of these not-in-

significant changes, Toyota says, was

to ‘increase roll resistance and improve

cornering stability.’” We’ll keep you

updated.

Toyota Supra