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New Supra to be unveiled on Monday

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24 minutes ago, knightryder said:

($50k per car fine, reputedly around 1900 cars) is going to cost them a fortune.

$95 million, I assume not included in the $177.4 million above. Not a good time to be a Suburu shareholder. 

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21 hours ago, Subota Boy said:

Thanks for posting this AJ.  Very interesting, especially if it heralds the end of the 86 !!

Be very sad if that is the case.

The Supra seems more of a grand tourer to me with all it's creature comforts like fancy electric seats and what have you weighing it down. I think Toyota said something like they expect it to spend 98% of it's time as a road car,  a car you use as a daily. Based on the price of the i6 I assume the 4 pot will still have a fairly hefty price tag and the PH article implies it will be another automatic.

Personally I love the fact that the GT86 is a real back to basics drivers car and I enjoy having a manual gearbox and proper handbrake. However, from Toyota's point of view I don't know how much sense a Mk 2 would make. If they only make cosmetic changes there will be complaints it still hasn't got any more power, if they up the performance it likely hits sales of the Supra.

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All they would need to do is get rid of the torque dip and increase power by 20-30bhp.  It wouldn't impact Supra sales, they would still be very different cars.

Question is: did the GT86/BRZ ever sell as well as they had wanted?

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Answer is - no. Despite each and every review on launch praising it, despite "car we've been asking for", if voting with wallet counts, imho people not buying anymore lot of cars like these, instead buying more and more SUVs shows where should manufacturers move to earn money. However we in this forum may dislike that direction, but carmakers are not into this business for charity :( and we make up minority of all the current car buyers out there :/

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32 minutes ago, MartinT said:

Question is: did the GT86/BRZ ever sell as well as they had wanted?

No idea how many they expected to sell but according to carsalesbase total sales in Europe were

GT86: 2012-2017 Sales 18,224 and last year Jan to Nov 2018 sales of 1,212

BRZ: 2012-2017 Sales 3,126 and last year Jan to Nov 2018 sales of 441

As a comparison

MX-5: 2012-2017 Sales 55,149 and last year Jan to Nov 2018 sales of 13,162

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Going by howmanyareleft.co.uk it looks like the UK accounts for about a third of the GT86 europe count at 6000-ish, which is perhaps not unreasonable? Either way it's less than half what the RX8 achieved in its day, and '86 lacks a huge number of the foibles of a rotary. Even the gopping Focus RS matches it.

Eyeballing it, the tin-top Z4 sold about 10k, but BMW still seems to have pushed the new one up another price bracket (thence profits?). You can make a lot when you don't have to rework the drivetrain at all across your whole range of saloons, SUVs and sports cars...

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I think Toyota have poorly marketed the car. It got rave reviews on launch and sold well for a couple of years as niche cars often do but then seemed to disappear off the radar. Only my experience, but I found trying to find a dealer who actually had a car in the showroom let alone a demonstrator hard work, more interested in Aygo, Prius and such.

Will be a sad day if they kill it off, I really don't think their is anything quite like it at the price point.

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14 hours ago, MartinT said:

With sales like that I think we can say goodbye to a Mk.II.

Those are only European sales, and Europe is a very weak market for Toyota. They don't sell much of anything here. The MX5 sells because we, especially in the UK (which is the majority of European MX5 sales), have a weird obsession with convertibles. We also have a weird obsession with hatchbacks as a performance car, neither of which are echoed in the US, Japan, and other markets. As a tin top, that means the GT86 has more competition here than it does elsewhere.

I don't know what overall global sales are, but I believe it has comfortably outsold the MX5 in other markets where Toyota typically performs well - 20,000 in Australia; 70,000 in the US.

The GT86 has sold far better than, say, the Nissan 350/370 in the UK, which is a closer comparison on size and price here. It also proves that performance isn't the issue it's made out to be.

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I can't see the GT86 going anywhere. 

First of all Toyota has already spoken about another joint venture for a new GT86 for 2021(ish), bearing in mind the Supra has been on the cards from at least 2014 so its not a sudden spanner in the works

There seems to be a general belief that Toyota still want a 3 sports car line up, (Akio Toyoda still wants it) although given Toyotas track record its hard to figure out what they are doing, The little S-FR just seemed to fade away never to be seen again.

I very much doubt you will see any change from £35-£38k for a baby Supra, which puts it in a different market to the GT86, not to mention its strictly a 2 seater. It makes perfect sense to exploit the opportunity to offer different powertrains for the Supra chassis seeing as they already exist.

Who knows if the GT86 was a success in Europe or not, we don't work for Toyota so don't know targets, but i think its reasonable to presume that these cars are important for the brand image rather than to be money makers, Toyota are one of the manufacturers of white goods for the car industry, other models are more important for the income.

The UK market is quite hostile for sports car, everyone is obsessed with anything hot hatch and German.

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On the mkv supra forum we had rumours of a new Celica (based on the new Supra) making a comeback to replace the 86.

Given the new Supra will apparently have two 2.0 turbo options (197bhp & 258bhp) in the future we straight away there have a replacement for the current 86 and the more powerful version many people were crying out for.

If the new Supra is roughly the same size as the 86 and has a lower centre of gravity than the 86, then building another 86 seems pointless unless its cost related. I can only see it being worthwhile if you can churn 86’s out of the Subaru factory for less than you can make base spec 2.0 Supra’s out of Austria.

Would make sense to me that Toyota are looking to simply put a different face and smaller wheels on the Supra body then sell it as the Celica then kill off the 86. This is essentially what they had with the Mk1 and Mk2 Supra.

Also lets look at the 86 life cycle. Came out in 2012, mid life facelift in 2017 which would suggest the current 86 will die in 2020. So roughly 2 years after the Supra. This is enough time for the Supra to plant roots perfectly before launching a cut down bargain Celica 2.0 version as an 86 replacement.

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On the mkv supra forum I heard rumours of a new Celica (based on the new Supra) making a comeback to replace the 86.
Given the new Supra will apparently have two 2.0 turbo options (197bhp & 258bhp) in the future we straight away there have a replacement for the current 86 and the more powerful version many people were crying out for.
Perhaps Toyota are looking to simply put a different face and smaller wheens on the Supra body then sell it as the Celica. This is essentially what they had with the Mk1 and Mk2 Supra.
Makes sense to me. The Supra has a lower centre of gravity than the 86. So why not get two models out of the same factory/production lines?
The supra was 1st launched as the Celica Supra as a more powerful version of the Celica IIRC

Sent from my LYA-L29 using Tapatalk

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24 minutes ago, Badger said:

The supra was 1st launched as the Celica Supra as a more powerful version of the Celica IIRC

Sent from my LYA-L29 using Tapatalk
 

Correct. A40 Supra (mk1) was essentially the MK2 Celica with a lengthened nose with a 2.6 6-cylinder.

Same happened in the MK3 Celica. They put another 2.8 straight 6 in it and that was the MK2 Supra (A60). I had a MK2 and it was awesome. I put a 4.0 V8 1UZ in mine lol

A70 Supra Mk3 was the first non-celica based car. Then we has the Mk4 A80.

I’ve had 3x A80’s. One black NA Auto Aerotop, a white na manual and a red uk spec tt auto. Awesome cars. But total boats compared to the 86.

tbh the new Supra needs to be pretty special to make me trade in my 86 for. Im finding myself drawn more towards a used LC500.

Just thought of something. Supra is back, Corolla is back, Camry is coming back... would make total sense for them to continue this classic name revival and bring the Celica back too. After all, they re-registered the Celica name patent in 2017; so they must be planning to use it.

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If "Celica revived" will be FWD, then better leave it dead. It's enough that last gen of Celica fscked up all image that was built behind/it stood for. Turbo GT-four or nothing :). Or it will be another flop like CRX>bloated gutless hybrid CRZ revival for Honda.

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If Toyota do bring back the Celica it wont be FWD. Toyota are only interested in sports cars for proper drivers these days. It’ll almost certainly be RWD like the first three generations of Celica.

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Well it seems that the UK oversold it's A90 Edition, some buyers have mentioned getting an apology from TGB for the cock up. Plus it seems that all Pro spec have also gone. Not sure when the next lot will be available, but well done to anyone who got one!

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I like it, I think in particular that limited A90 edition looks amazing with that paint finish and the red and black leather interior. The on paper performance stats look very impressive, while I would be confident with build quality from Magna Steyr (whose reputation and survival stands or falls on a handful of high end models that they produce for various manufacturers under contracts that would be switched if there were any quality issues).

The problem is the price of course, and the obvious comparison is with the established Cayman 718, although for the £52/54k Supra you would only get the poverty spec Cayman (with worse performance too), and to match the add on comforts that come as standard with the Supra you would be getting near £60k given Porsche's expensive additional spec policy, although perhaps the nearest current price match would be the 718 T version which does come with some goodies as standard.

Side by side I probably prefer the cleaner classic lines of the Cayman, but the key will be how they compare when driving and the feeling of the 6 pot 3 liter Supra vs the 2 liter 4 pot Cayman.

I'll be waiting until next year at the earliest before I think again about a car change (having now had the 86 since 2013 and still loving the experience), but the Supra will very likely be on my 'can I really afford it' list :)

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