© Carwow
The 2JZ-powered MkIV can't beat the current Supra in a drag race, but the battle is much closer than you might think.
Toyota's MkIV Supra was a miracle of Nineties engineering, a triumphant ending note to a long run as the top of Toyota's line. The nameplate has returned, and, though the car leaves something to be desired from those expecting a successor to the Toyota legend of the Nineties, it remains a fun, interesting take on rear-wheel-drive performance for a modern age. When a company displays two very different ideas of what a performance car can be, there is no better avenue of comparison than a drag race.
Carwow understands this, so it put both the 4-cylinder and 6-cylinder iterations of the MkV Supra up against the MkIV on a runway. Unsurprisingly, the more powerful and more modern 6-cylinder MkV car ultimately wins every comparison test. The 4-cylinder, which actually launches better on a damp track than the 6-cylinder from a standstill in both drag races, also narrowly outperforms the MkIV, which is more powerful but struggles to keep up due to its outdated automatic transmission. Ultimately, the 6-cylinder MkV set the fastest quarter mile time at 13.3 seconds, with the MkIV just a half-second behind.
The older Supra does better in a rolling test starting at 50 mph, quickly pulling away from the 4-cylinder MkV but still losing out to its 6-cylinder successor. The MkIV also stopped slightly shorter than the 4-cylinder MkV in a straight-line brake test from 70 mph, although it lost that test to the 6-cylinder car, too.
In total, the older Supra is still an impressive car, and still much faster than most things on the road, but it cannot keep up with the most powerful variant of its modern replacement. The reviewer, however, still noted that it lacks some of the Toyota spirit that made its predecessor so famous. Thankfully, as he noted, the company's Europe-only GR Yaris fills that role well.
Via Carscoops.