Toyota Supra confirmed with straight-six engine

Toyota Supra chief engineer Tatsuya Tada has confirmed the fifth-generation sports coupe will be offered with a straight-six petrol engine.

In an interview with Australian journalists at the Geneva motor show, where the new Supra was revealed as a GT racing concept, Tada also left the door open to a manual transmission on the upcoming A90 production car, along with hybrid and four-cylinder power.

The Toyota kingpin said a key reason behind the BMW collaboration (the new Supra was co-developed with BMW's next Z4) was the German marque's affinity with straight-six engines - a major drawcard across four generations of Supra.

"I understand that these two new elements should remain in the new model. Straight-six engines has been popular but now there are only a few companies that adopt straight-six engines because they are so long and they are difficult to fit in a sports car pacakage," Tada said.

"That was the background and that was how we converged into the Supra concept."

The bigger unknown is whether the BMW straight-six (likely to be a twin-turbo 3.0-litre producing 250kW) will solely power the Supra, or be used in conjunction with an electric motor to form a hybrid system.

Incorporating the latter would no doubt assist Toyota in complying with incoming stringent emissions regulations and real-world testing. Toyota also fields a hybrid Le Mans race car, a key consideration.

Then there's the constant chatter about the car's transmission. Tada declined to comment on rumours the Supra would only be offered in automatic form.

"I did receive many similar questions regarding what kind of transmissions we are thinking of. My answer is we are currently testing many different types of transmissions to see what will be the best to come," he said.

"I can already guess the next question will be what about power, what about hybrid? With powertrains and transmissions we are in an age where there is a big technological shift for cars. There are all kind of technologies and all kinds of available options.

"Unfortunately at this stage we do not know what is the best option that we will use. We are looking into options of hybrid and evolved versions of gasoline engines - we are looking at all options.

"I think we need a bit more time to decide which technology is best suited for future sports cars."

Tada said Toyota had confirmed internally what drivetrain would reside in the launch edition of Supra, and he also allayed any fears the next-generation model co-developed with BMW might not stand up to the torture and mechanical stress endured by earlier generation Supras.

"Obviously we test engines very thoroughly as this will be a car that would be bought at dealerships around the world and bought potentially by many long-time Toyota fans, so we definitely want to ensure [reliability] from our engines," he said.

Speaking specifically to rumours of a four-cylinder variant, Tada-san said: "We are also aware of various rumours or comments going around. The answer is that we are working on and looking into all variants, it hasn't been decided which one will go into it."