Manual Transmission Toyota Supra Review

Oh you son-of-a-bitch, I’m in! The Toyota Supra with the manual 6-speed transmission is what God intended. And it’s twice as badass when you put yellow on it. This is modern Japanese muscle ladies & gentlemen! Errr German/Japanese muscle. Whatever… it’s a predator.

All the other nit-picky criticisms I previously had with the A90 Supra…

Hell I can barely even remember what they were at this point. Why? Because frankly – banging gears in a yellow Supra makes none of them matter! ‘Nit-picking’ is something you do when you’re bored behind the wheel of a sports car with an automatic transmission. Not here.

Because now that there’s a manual transmission available, it changes everything for the Supra.

If you’re in the market, I would 100% encourage you to put the 6-speed Supra on your list. It has to be. And in all honestly, this review should just stop here. This is an emotionally-driven purchase, so you gotta go see if the 6-speed Supra gets you all emotional. But hell, for the sake of ‘needing more text to space-out the photos’… I’ll nit-pick just a little bit. Why not.

The Supra drives a lot like a BMW… because it is.

Yes – the Supra is a BMW. The joke is old, but that doesn’t make it less true. For some people though, the thought of a Toyota/BMW collaboration is a match made in Heaven. BMW makes a hell of a performance car. And they’re pretty damn good with turbocharged inline-6s too. For Toyota purists however, I get where that can be a bit off-putting. If it makes you feel any better – Toyota engineers did go through the engine before production, and made a list of things that BMW needed to ‘fix’ before they moved forward. Which I’m sure BMW loved lol. That makes me smile.

The Supra’s steering feels slightly numb to me…

The Supra is fast – yeah. And it will only get way faster with modifications. But when it comes to the steering, I personally like sports cars to be more physical & less Forza. That’s what I’m used to. I like to feel the tires pulling on the steering wheel. And with modern BMW technology, you don’t feel much of that. I get it… the analogue era is over. But so is the era of hair metal & punk rock lol… doesn’t make it right.

Visibility out of the Supra is marginal lol…

That can be a good or bad thing, depending on preference. The high door sills & low-slung roof makes you feel like a bad-bad boy lol. A lot like a chopped hotrod, a Camaro, or some GTP-type race car. It reenforces the fact that you’re in a serious, no-BS sports car. It’s like you just put a helmet on. Some people like feeling. Personally – I would love to see a Supra Targa for my gorgeous locks. But again – we got the 6-speed, so I ain’t gonna push it.

From the cockpit of this particular Supra, you can see yellow in all your peripherals, which just adds to the experience.

The Supra’s stock exhaust sounds great in Sport Mode. But throttle-response seems a little overly touchy in Sport. There’s a lot of electronic/sensor things getting all excited when you go into Sport Mode. However, if you don’t go into Sport & just keep it in Normal Mode, the Supra is too quiet & compliant… so you’ll just have to deal with the touchiness in Sport. Again, this is why I’m drawn to analog cars, because what you’re feeling is real & authentic – not modes. But again – these are things that aftermarket mods can fine-tune.

The Supra is fast…

It eats up roads quickly, and it will incinerate speed limits way before you’re ready to stop. It’ll get you in trouble. But it’ll also get you the respect… and to some people that’s more important (IYKYK lol). With it’s long nose & short butt, I just get a sense that the Supra could kick off the road backwards without too much warning (with the nanny controls off).

The window baffling is still comically awful. There is a cheap & easy aftermarket fix for that… I just can’t figure out why Toyota didn’t fix it already. Hell am I like… the only one who rolls down windows anymore?

It’s worth noting that my daughter enjoyed riding in the Mazda Miata RF more…???

She’s just getting to the age where I can put her in the front seat of 2-seaters… so it’s interesting to hear her thoughts. She said the Miata just ‘fits better’. I was surprised because I figured she’d be a sucker for yellow. But you know what? Part of me can’t disagree with that. Although part of me also knows the horsepower difference might have had her a little edgy.

Is the Supra perfect?

No, but perfect is boring. The best cars of history have never been perfect… that’s not what it’s about. If you want perfect, buy a…. something else. This is about presence, connection, attitude, and lifestyle. A yellow 6-speed Supra… it’s defiant in today’s age. It bucks the norms. It throws a middle finger at conformity. Who would ever buy something like that? (Ooooo me me me *like a 1st-grader with my hand up-high wanting to get picked for line-leader.)