Following the news that Toyota Supra sales declined by almost 50% in 2023, it got me thinking more deeply about enthusiasts, car buyers, and today’s automotive landscape in general. And with those thoughts came another: Some things cannot be quantified. In other words, as a carmaker, you can meet or exceed every performance statistic. You can check every stat & spec box that a buyer would ever want… and still miss the mark. Why? Well to be honest, there isn’t a correct answer here. In fact, there may not be a real answer at all. It may just boil down to thousands of individual hesitations for hundreds of different reasons. So let’s dive into it…
Certain nameplates carry the legacy of iconic vehicles behind them…
We all have some appreciation for aspects of a vehicle that we can’t quite properly describe. Take my dad for example: My dad appreciates cars & loves enthusiast-based TV shows… but isn’t a diehard enthusiast himself. During a discussion about the new Supra, he brought up how he still wishes he’d bought that special anniversary-edition MK4 Supra from a friend of a friend all those years ago. You could see the nostalgia in his eyes. Then he realized he hadn’t even seen the new Supra. I showed him a few photos & instantly – his face grimaced.
He felt Toyota missed the design mark completely. On paper, it has the wide hips of a Supra, and it’s a sporty coupe with a boosted inline-6. But in reality, at least for my dad – even though the Supra hit all those points, it still failed the mission visually. He didn’t see the new Supra as a Supra.
However, he still couldn’t pinpoint exactly what he didn’t like about it. Maybe it was the design in general. Or the seemingly unauthentic collaboration with BMW… or the use of what he said is an undeserving nameplate. Maybe it’s actually this: Maybe resurrecting iconic nameplates of the past just evokes too much nostalgia for the people who were there. And if that’s the case, why not just give it a fresh new name… so you don’t trigger a nostalgic & emotionally-charged loyal fanbase? The new Supra was striking when it was first released, bearing a close resemblance to the FT-1 concept. In hindsight… it might have fared better if the name remained FT-1.
Akio Toyoda’s MK4 Supra
To this day, I still look at the new Supra trying to figure out why I don’t love it, even when it’s tastefully modified.
Is it the Supra’s design language? Do I just find it unattractive?? That doesn’t track though, because I also find the Subaru Baja to be ugly… and I desperately want one for some reason.
Is it the nameplate slapped on the car? Maybe… but Ford slapped the Maverick name on a tiny pickup that I thought I’d hate until I drove one… and now I don’t mind the truck or its name. Although don’t get me started on the Mustang Mach E lol.
Ok so is it the price? Price is subjective to a point. But anyone who lived before 2020 knows that car prices (and the price of everything) has gotten downright offensive. Additional dealer markups are totally off-putting. Yet plenty of people/suckers are still bending over for markups & signing their name on the line for $1,000+ car payments like it’s ‘the new normal’. So taking today’s absurd & inflated market into account, the Supra really offers a lot of bang for the buck… that’s true.
Maybe it is the collaboration with another manufacturer? Wait… nope… that’s not it because I own an FR-S. So obviously collaborations don’t stop me. Plus from certain aspects, it seems like a Toyota/BMW collaboration could be a match made in heaven. See, no matter what metric I look at the Supra from, I really can’t put my finger on anything specific.
You can’t argue the Supra’s performance either…
As a sports car, the new Supra is better handling, sharper, and outperforms any Supra predecessor… as well as other competitors/rivals in its category. It’s a great performance car… that seemingly just lacks ‘the spark’ for a lot of people. Unfortunately it’s ‘the spark’ that gets people over the hurdles of sensibility, and gets them to throw caution to the wind & actually BUY the sports car.
The new Supra might just end up becoming a late desire – an iconic vehicle that didn’t sell well until it was gone. Kind of like the MK4 Supra to be honest. It didn’t have to be that way though…
I think social media is a cancer for sports cars…
The endless comments & criticisms eat everything in their path. Nothing will ever be good enough for the comments sections OR for modern automotive media that survives off clicks & shock-value. We’ve created a landscape where non-buyers are scaring-off actual potential buyers And today, we can call this landscape: ‘Automotive Enthusiast Media’. Tragic… isn’t it. Severely hypocritical as well. But if you wanna fix that problem, you have to go back 10-15 years to where carmakers stopped advertising in credible magazines within the industry/culture, and started advertising with big-tech algorithms instead (Meta & Google). So in a way – corporate negligence & disloyalty has made this bed, and now the bed has cancer. A car like the Supra should be somewhat polarizing… that’s to be expected. But that doesn’t mean sales should be low.
What are your thoughts on the Supra’s design & legacy? Do you think it will become a late desire?
Only reason Sales dropped was because Toyota did not produce as many units as the prior year. There’s not a large supply of new Supras sitting on dealer lots. Try buying a new Supra and you’ll realize almost all units are presold months before they land.