In case you somehow didn’t know, the new Supra is essentially a BMW Z4 on the inside. It has a BMW drivetrain, interior, and parts. It is propelled by a B58 twin-turbo straight-six engine from BMW. The M440i xDrive also has the same straight-six engine. In a drag race, even though both cars have the same engine, they are not very evenly matched.
To see which car would be faster, the Carwow Youtube channel recently decided to drag race the two vehicles on a closed runway. Given that it’s a 2020 model, the Supra only has 340 horsepower (it was retuned to 382 hp for 2021). On the other hand, the M440i is producing all 382 horsepower. It also has all-wheel drive, giving it tremendous starting grip.
Although the Supra may have less torque and traction, it does have one advantage: weight. It is significantly lighter than the 4-Series because it just has two seats and does not require an AWD system. Unfortunately, in a straight-up drag race, that wouldn’t be enough to win. The Supra falls short in each of the three races. The only time it can compete is in a roll race, where it finishes neck and neck with the M440i.
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The new Z4 roadster’s increased hardware will be used by the fifth-generation Supra.
When it was announced several years ago, Toyota’s desire to collaborate with BMW on the Supra/Z4 joint project raised quite a few eyebrows. We are only a few weeks away from the A90’s premiere in Detroit after a painstakingly long path to the official unveiling of the vehicle. The fifth-generation Supra will have a BMW engine under the hood when it shows up at NAIAS. Chief engineer Tetsuya Tada gave an interview to Automotive News Europe in which he outlined the justification for choosing to get the Supra’s engine from a different automaker.
Supra, is it a BMW Z4?
Nowadays, making an economic case for a sports vehicle is more difficult than ever, so it’s not hard to imagine that neither the third-generation BMW Z4 nor the fifth-generation Toyota Supra would have been possible without cooperation between the two automakers.
Two illustrious automotive lines persist, one of which dates back to the 1930s with BMW’s roadsters. And in conventional shape, without any attempt to undergo a horrifying crossover mutation to entice SUV enthusiasts (hello Ford Mustang Mach-E).
Since the last Supra was sold in 2002, BMW’s open-top sports vehicle has gone by the name Z3, even though both models’ production came to an end that year. Two very excellent reasons the Supra is back are Toyota’s success with the 86 compact sports coupe, a joint venture with Subaru, and the fervent cries of Supra fans.
According to the legend, Toyota flew its head engineer to Munich to suggest a joint venture that would help the business cut expenses when it decided to finally produce a new generation Supra.
Therefore, despite the fact that the Supra is a coupe and the Z4 is a convertible, both vehicles share the same BMW base as well as other essential BMW parts. Additionally, the same company, Magna Steyr in Austria, constructs both vehicles.
BMW’s six-cylinder engine is one of those shared components, but it can only be found in the Z4’s $124,900 M40i model, which is significantly more expensive than the Supra’s base pricing for its 3.0-liter turbocharged gasoline engine.
The Supra’s engine is it a BMW?
The brand-new Toyota Supra is propelled by a BMW engine, which is no secret. That has been widely publicized for at least a year. However, there are currently two BMW engines available for the Supra: a 255 horsepower version of the BMW B48 2.0 liter turbo-four and a 382 horsepower version of the BMW B58 3.0 liter turbocharged inline-six. What needs to be determined is which one is superior.
That question can appear absurd on its face. Of course, the engine with the most power is the best engine. Right? Well, perhaps not. Both have advantages and disadvantages, thus it’s possible to argue that the Toyota Supra is better off with the smaller engine. In this brand-new Everyday Driver video, we get to see which is superior.
Even while the 2.0 version has less power, it might be the one to purchase for one specific reason that has gone unnoticed: packing. The new Toyota Supra 2.0T is often praised by enthusiasts for being lighter (it weighs roughly 200 lbs less), and the smaller engine plays a significant role in that. The location of the engine itself, rather than the engine’s smaller weight, is what makes a difference.
The size of the 2.0 liter turbocharged four-cylinder allows Toyota to position it so far back in the engine compartment that the entire engine is behind the center line of the front axle. In essence, it is a front-mid-engine vehicle. Ferrari asserts that its vehicles with the same package are front-mid engines even if it is still listed as a front-engine vehicle. We’re going to call it that because it’s cooler.
The Toyota Supra can turn in considerably more quickly thanks to the revised packaging since there is simply much less weight in front of the front wheels. The weight is higher inboard than in the six-cylinder variant, making it turn in better and spin slightly better around corners, similar to a mid-engine car. Even while it’s not technically in the middle, the effects of relocating the engine so far inboard are very close to doing so.
So, even though the Toyota Supra 3.0 is still a fantastic car and has a greater engine, the 2.0 model has a slightly better feel. The experience of testing these cars firsthand will be incredibly intriguing.
What BMW’s engine is the same as the Supra’s?
It’s no secret that the powertrain and infotainment system of the contemporary Toyota Supra are largely made by BMW. This video compares this Japanese sports coupe to a BMW M140i that has the exact same engine.
Both of these cars are not stock. The Supra has a re-mapped ECU, a turbo-back Inconel exhaust, and a cold-air intake. In comparison to the typical 335 horsepower (250 kW) for the model in the UK, the owner estimates that the car is making roughly 460 horsepower (343 kilowatts).
Why is the new Supra called a BMW?
Working together between various automakers is not uncommon. Cost and production time savings, as well as the utilization of shared technologies and resources, are frequent advantages of collaboration. Ford has already partnered with Mazda, Toyota has done it with Subaru, and BMW is currently collaborating with Jaguar Land Rover on electrification technology. Toyota and BMW have a long-standing cooperation that recently gave rise to the most recent version of the revered Supra, Toyota’s illustrious mid-sized sports car.
The new Supra, which is now in its fifth generation, doesn’t resemble the BMW Z4 with which it shares parts at all. It has fascinating shapes and pointed-looking headlights, whilst the Z4 has a curvier, more rounder style. The Supra’s bold dimensions can look a little off-putting from certain perspectives. It also sports a distinctive front fascia, as opposed to the safer, more traditional BMW look of the Z4’s.
Even though both vehicles are two-door sports cars, the Supra has a hardtop while the Z4 is only available as a convertible.
However, the new Supra contains a sizable amount of components with BMW stamps underneath. For instance, the inline-six engine came from BMW, but Toyota’s engineers tweaked it especially for the Supra. The chassis is identical to the Z4’s, and BMW likewise provides the eight-speed automatic transmission. The Magna Steyr facility in Graz, Austria, produces both vehicles.
The cooperation makes sense both economically and culturally. Toyota understood it had to offer the new Supra a straight-six engine in order to maintain the tradition set by earlier iterations of the Supra.
So instead of spending the time and money necessary to design and construct its own new straight-six, Toyota opted to use BMW’s.
According to Motor Trend, BMW decided against building a new version of a low-volume convertible because the costs associated with doing so would have been too high. BMW was able to release the new Z4 and the new Supra last year thanks in part to financial support from Toyota.
Which Supra components are made by BMW?
Both the 2.0-liter four-cylinder turbo and the 3.0-liter six-cylinder turbo engines for the new Toyota Supra are direct imports from BMW. The smaller engine, internally referred to as the B48B20, will be offered in two states of tune, producing 197 and 255 horsepower, respectively, which are exactly the same outputs the same engine has, for example, in a MINI Cooper S and a BMW 330i.
It’s unclear how much Toyota modified this engine for the Supra, but it’s undeniable that both this engine and the larger 3.0-liter, which typically powers BMWs with the 40i label, are products of the German automaker. It is adjusted to produce 335 hp and 494 Nm/365 pound-feet of torque in the Supra, which is actually 6 Nm less than it does in the Z4. The ZF eight-speed automatic gearbox, which is the exact same one BMW uses in its Z4 to drive the rear wheels, is currently the only way for any engine configurations to transmit power to them.
The BMW Z4 is two tenths faster to sprint to 100 km/h or 62 mph than the six-cylinder Supra, which has the same engine with essentially the same output. It’s amusing that BMW lowered its claimed sprint time for the fastest current Z4 from 4.1 to 3.9 seconds after Toyota announced the Supra could sprint to 100 km/h in 4.1 seconds, undoubtedly just to outdo the Japanese automaker on paper – it will obviously be significantly faster in practice.
This could show whether one or both manufacturers are exaggerating engine and performance numbers, which could turn out to be very different in practice.
Who produced the MK5 Supra?
Beginning in 1978, the Toyota Motor Corporation produced the Toyota Supra (Japanese: toyotasupura, Hepburn: Toyota Supura), a sports car and grand tourer. The Latin prefix supra, which means “above,” “to transcend,” or “go beyond,” is the source of the name “supra.”
The first four Supra models were built between 1978 and 2002. Since March 2019, the fifth generation has been produced, and it debuted in May 2019. The Toyota Celica served as the inspiration for the styling of the first Supra, which was broader and longer. The A70 Supra split off from the Celica as a separate model in the middle of 1986. Toyota, in turn, discontinued using the prefix Celica and changed the name of the vehicle to Supra. Due to their names’ resemblance and shared history, the Celica and Supra are commonly confused with one another. The Tahara facility in Tahara, Aichi, produced the first, second, and third generations of the Supra, while the Motomachi plant in Toyota City produced the fourth. In Graz, Austria, Magna Steyr assembles the fifth-generation Supra alongside the G29 BMW Z4.
Due to an inline-6 architecture, the Supra also owes a lot of its DNA to the 2000GT. The M engine from the Crown and 2000GT was made available for the first three generations. Additionally comparable were interior design features and the chassis code “A”.
Toyota gave the Supra its own logo in addition to the moniker. It was based on the original Celica logo, except that blue was used in place of orange. Before the A70 Supra was unveiled in January 1986, this logo was in use. The new logo was the same size, but it did not have the dragon motif. It had orange letters on a red background. Up until 1991, when Toyota moved to its current oval business emblem, that logo was affixed to Supras. (Regardless of color, the dragon logo was a Celica logo. Due to the fact that the first two generations of the Supra were legally Toyota Celicas, it was present on them. The Celica line had a dragon logo until it was likewise retired.) [Reference needed]
Toyota stopped selling the fourth-generation Supra in the United States in 1998. The fourth generation of the Supra’s production for international markets came to an end in 2002.
The fifth version of the Supra, which was jointly developed with the G29 Z4, was released in January 2019.