Car & Driver Mag: Supra vs 86 Center of Gravity

[Dake]

I tracked my FRS on the stock suspension for six years. In the meantime, I was saving for the Supra (until we learned it was a Bimmer parts bin special). In a different world where Toyota actually created their own car, you bet your arse it'd be at the track after the 1k mile break-in was done.

[HachiRokuX]

I don't really get all the negativity around the Supra..it looks kinda 2000GT-ish from certain angles and has really good HP/TQ. Just gotta wait 3-5 years and see if it will be reliable...

[OwlDance]

I'd care more if horsepower numbers or efficiency or something more overtly tangible was incorrect. But CoG? Did anyone really notice or give a toss among all the media reviewers who drove the car, on track no less? Personally, I don't care and in my opinion it's just another thing people want to overly lambast Toyota for not making a Mk4. CoG is a very nebulous thing anyway that most people aren't going to feel an inch or two either way unless someone told them. Same way people think a measured 2hp gain from a drop in filter can be detected on their butt dyno.

Now is it crappy that it's not the truest/factual statement? Yeah, I don't *disagree* to that extent but I think people are overblowing it and are looking for more excuses to make out the Supra as a bad car.

[extrashaky]

Originally Posted by NARFALICIOUS

Why are a bunch of people who aren't going to buy the car so concerned about it's Center of Gravity anyways?

How many of you who would buy the car even track it?

And how many of you who would track it, would also keep stock suspension?

Some big assumptions there about the people you're addressing. Me, personally? I will likely be in the market for a new car within the next two to three years, and the new Supra is certainly a contender. It's well within my price range and checks many of the boxes on my list of desired attributes. If I bought one, I might in fact take it out on a track with the stock suspension, if only for HPDE sessions.

I suspect there are quite a few regular participants in this forum who are even more likely to buy it than I am and even more likely to track it when they do.

[NARFALICIOUS]

Originally Posted by extrashaky

Some big assumptions there about the people you're addressing. Me, personally? I will likely be in the market for a new car within the next two to three years, and the new Supra is certainly a contender. It's well within my price range and checks many of the boxes on my list of desired attributes. If I bought one, I might in fact take it out on a track with the stock suspension, if only for HPDE sessions.

I suspect there are quite a few regular participants in this forum who are even more likely to buy it than I am and even more likely to track it when they do.

Right. But does it's minor difference in Center of Gravity compared to an 86 affect your decision to buy one or to take it to a track? And how would it affect your level of enjoyment with the car ?

I would guess the halo MK4 has a very high CG compared to an 86. You know, the one everyone wanted the MKV to be more like?



Didn't assume anything about you since I didn't see your name in this thread until now.

It's not an issue of people merely complaining of quirks of a car they own, it's people getting all butthurt about a car they've never driven, because some car journalist tested CG and now people have another thing to btch about regarding Toyota.... OK. If you're not going to buy one, why do you care? If you are going to buy one anyways, then why btch about it when you're going to give the same company $50K of your money anyways LOL.


I wonder how many of you trust IMDB & Rotten Tomatos on whether you should watch a movie? In my experience, people who aren't me have crappy taste in movies. I'm guessing most people feel the same.

[86MLR]

Originally Posted by NARFALICIOUS

Right. But does it's minor difference in Center of Gravity compared to an 86 affect your decision to buy one or to take it to a track? And how would it affect your level of enjoyment with the car ?

I would guess the halo MK4 has a very high CG compared to an 86. You know, the one everyone wanted the MKV to be more like?



Didn't assume anything about you since I didn't see your name in this thread until now.

It's not an issue of people merely complaining of quirks of a car they own, it's people getting all butthurt about a car they've never driven, because some car journalist tested CG and now people have another thing to btch about regarding Toyota.... OK. If you're not going to buy one, why do you care? If you are going to buy one anyways, then why btch about it when you're going to give the same company $50K of your money anyways LOL.


I wonder how many of you trust IMDB & Rotten Tomatos on whether you should watch a movie? In my experience, people who aren't me have crappy taste in movies. I'm guessing most people feel the same.

Apologies for voicing my opinion about a new car on a car forum, or is it just my negative views about a car you like.

As for the CoG, that is the least of my issues of what is wrong with rhe Zupra, but, again, that is my opinion.

Butt hurt, me, nah, I give no farks about it really, I'm just voicing my opinion about a car that I was initially looking forward to, until BMW got involved that is.

Do I wish it was a Toyota/Lexus build, hell yeah, same as I wish the 86 was a Toyota build, with a in-line 4 pot.

Toyota and Subaru collaborating to make a cheap sports car, yeah, whilst I'm not happy I can deal with that, Toyota and BMW collaborating to make a Zupra, nope.

Plus, more fake vents than a Honda, I would hate looking at them knowing that they are just form over function.

On the other hand, other people........well, you get the picture.

[Adam_L]

I can't wait to see the first Zupra, black, rolling on 20" wheels

[extrashaky]

Originally Posted by NARFALICIOUS

Right. But does it's minor difference in Center of Gravity compared to an 86 affect your decision to buy one or to take it to a track?

Certainly not by itself. But it helps set expectations for when I go drive it for the first time to evaluate whether to buy it.

Originally Posted by NARFALICIOUS

I would guess the halo MK4 has a very high CG compared to an 86. You know, the one everyone wanted the MKV to be more like?

Personally, I dislike that hideous car and wouldn't want anything to be like it. I suspect the majority of people who end up buying the new one won't give a shit about the old ones, just as most people who buy 86s are not Initial D fans drooling over an overblown econobox. Most of the fanboys who go on about the old Supra endlessly have only seen it in shitty movies, have never driven it and will never drive the new one.

Originally Posted by NARFALICIOUS

If you're not going to buy one, why do you care? If you are going to buy one anyways, then why btch about it when you're going to give the same company $50K of your money anyways LOL.

The world is not a set of binary choices. What if you're not going to not buy one, but you're also not going to buy one anyway? I suspect most of us are in the middle somewhere, where we might buy one or might not and are interested in the information about the car potentially being misrepresented.

[Dake]

If they feel the need to exaggerate something as insignificant as CoG (remember, Toyota are the ones who brought it up unsolicited), then what else?

Speculators buying this car to park in a bubble don't care. People that do care though are also going to know enough to be suspicious. Why risk it, or fudge the testing conditions to make it "factual"?

[extrashaky]

Originally Posted by Dake

Speculators buying this car to park in a bubble don't care.

Speculators buying this car to park in a bubble are idiots who will lose money on their "investment."

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by extrashaky

Personally, I dislike that hideous car and wouldn't want anything to be like it. I suspect the majority of people who end up buying the new one won't give a shit about the old ones, just as most people who buy 86s are not Initial D fans drooling over an overblown econobox. Most of the fanboys who go on about the old Supra endlessly have only seen it in shitty movies, have never driven it and will never drive the new one.

The fanboi handbooks of Supra performance:

[86MLR]

The Mk4 Supra's were excellent tuner cars.

Much better than the Nissan Skylines of the era, borh engine reliability and drivetrain.

The 2J with bolt ons was/is a solid beast, the RB needed work to not eat itself, keeping its oil inside the engine can be difficult.

Also the gearboxes were chalk and cheese.

Those Getrag 6 speed boxes in the Mk4 are the awesome.

In saying that they are as old as fark now, and neither have aged well.

[xdavidx]

Originally Posted by extrashaky

Speculators buying this car to park in a bubble are idiots who will lose money on their "investment."

Unless it's a ferrari (and i do mean that literally), bubbling a car in speculation will always be a money loser. The reason that the old supra became so valuable is because no one wanted it at the time and anyone who had one drove and modded the crap out of it. Then fast n furious and demand went nuts.

Over the years, I've seen people put all kinds of cars in bubbles from special edition ford mustangs and corvettes, dodge hellcats, porsche 911s (watercooled). Then a new better version comes out and no one cares and they plummet in value as most cars do. The valuable ones are generally the ones no one expects to be at first and grow to become legends decades later. Problem is that if something is expected to be collectible it is collected and then there are tons of prime examples available later. Plus the cost of holding and maintaining a car in a bubble for decades makes absolutely no investment sense. Much better off sticking the cash in an S&P 500 fund and then you can buy 10 of your dream cars in 40 years. Also, the dream cars of those of us who were of age in the 90s will not be the dream cars of those coming of age now and those are the ones that will be valuable one day (if this generation will even value cars at all).

I'd be willing to bet that this new Supra goes down in history for what it is... a hardtop Z4. But Z4s will be more valuable, because no one is bubbling them... and they have manual transmissions.

[extrashaky]

Originally Posted by xdavidx

UThe reason that the old supra became so valuable is because no one wanted it at the time and anyone who had one drove and modded the crap out of it.

The old Supra is not valuable. It was a $50K car then. Now you can buy them for $30K, at most $50K for a particularly clean example. After inflation and carrying costs, keeping its value is a loss.

Plus there should be a penalty assumed just for having the poor taste to keep something that ugly around for that long.