Toyota Supra v BMW Z4: What's different?

Toyota’s highly-anticipated Supra sports car will offer a distinctly different driving feel and styling to the new BMW Z4 it shares its platform with.

That’s the word from the Supra’s chief engineer, Tetsuya Tada. Speaking with Australian media at the Geneva motor show this week, Tada-san spoke about some of the technical and philosophical differences between the Z4 and the Supra, which is expected to reach Australian showrooms in mid-2019.

“For Toyota we wanted to come up with a pure sports car when making the Supra. As for BMW, for their Z4 or Z5, they have their own ideas but you’d have to ask them,” Tada said.

“This project started in May 2012. At that time I was in the midst of a press event in Spain for the GT86. I received a phone call from management and I was instructed to go and see BMW in Munich, secretly, without telling anyone.

“I went over to Munich and discussed with BMW and back in Japan discussed with my superior that it would be possible to do a joint development. I got the instruction to look into it myself and see the possibility.

“We finally came to the concept of making Supra together after two years of joint work and alliance with BMW. A flagship sports car was a possibility and a high-tech car was another possibility. We have quite different styles on how we development cars and how we make cars compared with BMW.”

The development process between Toyota and BMW was quite different to the Japanese car-maker’s earlier collaboration with Subaru on the 86/BRZ, Tada-san said.

However, BMW’s penchant for straight-six engines meant the collaboration with Toyota, specifically on the Supra, was considered a match made in heaven.

“It’s really the development process between the two companies that are starkly different. If I was to go into all of these it would take quite a lot of time, but I can give you one example.

“The reason why we decided to jointly develop GT86 and BRZ is because sports cars are a difficult business case. You need a lot of new parts and the development is expensive,” Tada said.

“When we worked with Subaru we had a common understanding that we would seek out as many common parts as possible. It would only be colours and badges that would be different -- otherwise as many common parts as possible.

“We expected that BMW would have such common sense as well – to seek out as many parts as possible – but that was not the case. They wanted to see what they wanted to make as individual parts, develop those and if there were any common parts, it would make sense to do a joint development.

“That’s how we develop this car. Obviously there are common parts but the development process was quite different to Subaru. Even if the hardware is similar the calibrations are quite different, according to the taste that fits the company’s characteristics.”

Tada-san said that during the Supra project, Toyota and BMW engaged in a “step-by-step” process in which both parties agreed on their car’s technical details before progressing to other areas.

There was plenty to be learned from either side of the fence. For Tada and his team, a key teaching from BMW was the importance to focus on the “true nature of the car or the drive, rather than looking at the cost or business case”.

“As you know, Supra made its revival after 15 years,” he said. “We wanted to think about what sort of car we wanted. The first thing I did was to go to different fans of Supra to hear what their requests were. I didn’t want to simply revive Supra, I wanted to adopt new tech into the car at the same time,

“Hearing these different voices, I understand there are two elements that we need to keep with the new Supra.

“This is the fifth-generation Supra and from each of the four generations before it there has been one consistency: a straight six engine that has been installed. These have been very important element.

“The other important element is FR (front engine, rear drive) configuration.

“On one hand I had this opportunity to work together with BMW and the other opportunity was to revive Supra. I thought that was a perfect match to utilise the elements of both companies.”

The Supra has an estimated mid-2019 arrival in Australia. Toyota says there will be several different variants at this point, including the possibility of hybrid and four-cylinder powertrains – and hopefully a manual transmission.