LG John

Today I had my first drive of a Supra It was a VVTi model with a few mods to take it to about 350bhp and it had the tiptronic system. It's owner is interested in a part exchange with my S2000 and was kind enough to let me take it away for a few hours in the afternoon to see if it would float my boat.

My first impressions were that it felt soooo typically Japanese; solid; bombproof actually; well screwed together and nicely planted. It mootled around in the traffic effortlessly. Once warmed up I burried the throttle and it sunk two cogs and let fly The shove was comedy as it kicked at 4000rpm with the 2nd turbo and took a giant p*ss on 100mph. The car really has no respect for the cubed relationship between speed and air resistance. Sadly my fun was cut short (probably for the best) at an indicated 122mph when the speed limiter called a halt to proceeding. Dropping back to 80 if felt as comfy and solid as any German car only lacking the class and finish of german interiors.

I met up with my mate who follwed me down a sweeping a-road where there was time to test out its overtaking grunt and also the usefulness of the tiptronic 'manual' mode. Overtaking was simply astonishing - it passed anything with utter ease altough I'd have to say that if you were going to take on a real 'tight' little gap where you quickly nip round a slow car with limited space/time to do it then the S2000 is actually quicker with its instant urge. Even dropping the gears with the tiptronic system to ensure a held 4500rpm the few moments for the blower to deliver sees the opportunity missed.

My mate, who was driving a Civic Type-R, played the 'can you get passed' game on a nice long straight and the answer was.....Yeah, pretty bloody easily With that little big of lag it initially looked like a close one but once in its stride and higher in the rev range (where I presume VVTi takes charge) it effortlessly passed him and again settled to that easy going sedate cruise.

I didn't chuck her about through the bends as it wasn't my car but it certainly felt stable enough and held the road well although the nimble S2000 would corner quicker and change direction easier.

All in all it was an excellent experience and I'd say the car is really suited to sweeping a-roads with some 'challenging' traffic to overtake. You can either cruise along with the auto-box doing all the work or drop a few cogs and pass slower traffic with utter ease. The jury is still out on whether I'll talk money on the p/x though as I did miss the involvment of swapping cogs, heel-n-toe, etc and even by the end of the day I was getting used to the power and thinking that it needs more (such a slippery slope!)

What was actually amazing is that my Honda (modified with n/a mods) didn't feel slow afterwards like I expected it would. It didn't have the turbo kick or the lowdown grunt but working through the gears from 7000-9000rpm it felt like it would really give the Supra a run for its money up to 110mph or so. After that though it would be left for dead

As a final note I'd love to drive a de-restricted supra down an autoban just so see the slug passing 130-140 and 150mph.....and probably 160 too..

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Jealous, me, well yes, I so want one of these.

As long as it hasnt been ruined with a body kit.

350 bhp sounds kind of average these days but its still a hell of a lot of power.

AudiLover

Fastest supra I have ever seen. Its as if he put his foot down and went into warp speed 6!!!!!!

http://www.bolt.com/417supra/video/5...eo_large_PAGE1

LG John

Jacko they are definately a car worth having at some point in your life. I'm not sure if the time is right for me this time round as I'd probably rather have one when I've got a lot of free money to spend on it. A single turbo would be great

LG John

Well this is warp speed 7

SPEN555

It's a case of what ou prefer, N/A vs Turbo. I absolutely love the punch my turbo gives on my scoob and I would imagine a 300+bhp N/A would seem less dramatic in comparison.

AudiLover

fookin fast

dij

you need to take one round some bends etc,ie drive one like its your own to realy know if you would like it as an every day car.

I personally think its a bit big for every day use,but if I was gonna get one I wouldnt be put off by the lag or AT gearbox.
had plenty of fun and scary moments in a friends one,and it is almost unbeatable untill you come up next to a skyline with mods

btw,was this car a JDM version?the uk cars have a bit more lag

SPEN555

I'll second that. Looks like he nearly lost it at the end. Not seen a drag strip with a uphill section after the start line. Must be a serious strip

Blueblaster

As usual I am going to be boring again . Unless you live somewhere where police are scarce and open roads are aplenty, can I suggest you take it out again on a journey you do all the time? How about your trip to work in the rush hour? The reason I say this is that I was in a hurry to change my car and got seduced with a back road blast. The Supra is a much bigger car than your S2000 and will be very different to live with. And btw, I think the Supra looks so good and is such a good second hand buy that it probably compensates for the dreadful fuel consumption that is my usual complaint. Just my two-penneth.

Andy M3

Brisk enough

Varboy

excellent cars, getting a bit long in the tooth now though

andy257

Yeah i agree they are getting on a bit now but for the price you pay there is nothing on the road with that power.

My mate picked up one for £6k and it has a fair few miles on it 90K+ and its bomb proof. Hes spent about £600 on the BPU to take it around the claimed 400bhp mark. Not seen anything beat it yet. Waiting for the day a skyline or something similar overtakes him.

Andy

delcbr

ahh the dreaded fuel consumption what a shame is it 18mpg?

borat52

I'm planning on getting a supra also in the next few months. Engines are meant to be solid as rock. Looking at a 600PS modified one from japan at the moment. The appeal has to be that to get this sort of power elsewhere you would have to be shopping for ferrari's/Lambo's costing 10 times the price.

Varboy

Old cars (even immaculate ones) tend to start breaking down once they hit a certain age, a bit like people really.

case in point, my wife's BMW 316 compact (P reg) was costing us about £200 / month average on routine repairs servicing etc even though it had only 56k on the clock.

This would be my only fear about buying a Supra (and Skyline) even thogh you can get silly power out of them!

Dark Blue Mark

Supra's engine is so well built though, as its the RB26 in the Skyline. I wouldnt compare the reliability to a BMW lump. The amount of issues they have had on the M series over the years... Plus the Jap stuff has to cope with people bolting on large amounts of power

MB

AudiLover

The jap stuff was built specifically for people to bolt **** on them for huge power. Same goes for most of those turbo japanese motors from the 80/90's.

Varboy

sorry, should have been more specific, I meant the ancilliaries.

BMW in my experience has been fantastically reliable

Varboy

+ the problems with the M engine stems from the fact that they are as close to race engines that you can get on the road (out of the box that is). Not many other manufactures dare make a road car engine that offers 100bhp + litre naturally aspirated

LG John

*Cough* S2000 *Cough*






120bhp per litre

LG John

....and proven reliability too I'd fancy Honda could engineer a 3.2 with 343bhp that would run all day every day without fear of big bills.

AudiLover

shame that the locking wheel nuts on a M3 requires more torque to loosen than the S2000 motor produces

LG John

Fly torque is for tractors - torque at the wheels is for performance cars

Varboy

so your point is?

I didn't say BMW were the only manufacturers.

Whatever floats your boat. Personally I would prefer a bit more torque across the range a la M car, rather than nothing below whatever pm then whoomp

LG John

Nevermind

I was simply responding to, "+ the problems with the M engine stems from the fact that they are as close to race engines that you can get on the road (out of the box that is). Not many other manufactures dare make a road car engine that offers 100bhp + litre naturally aspirated"

There is another manufacturer and they arguably do it better

LG John

In short IMHO its a pure excuse to say that paying £1000s for Vanos failure on M-cars is par for the course because they are highly tuned engines. If I buy an E46 M3 or an E39 M5 I expect that the engine is the one thing that should be bloody bulletproof given the development that goes into them. Many owners experiences attest to the fact that this isn't the case!

Varboy

Honda are superb engineers, they probably could do it better, but I haven't seen an engine produced by Honda with the same characteristics as the BMW M series have you? So the question is why haven't they?

Personally I think this Vanos going pop thing is overated, yes they do and yes it is an inherent flaw, but no it doesn't happen to every BMW M powered car on the road.

turbodan

Hondas sacrifice driveability for power. Their VTEC systems are ****. Not in the same league as Mpower engines. BHP per litre its irrelevant, its how its delivered that counts.

LG John

Because they wouldn't really have a car to put it in!! It would cost a fortune to develop such an engine and they would need to be sure they could make their money back on it. Given honda don't have the badge or image to compete with a BMW there is no way an M3 style car would make enough money for honda