Tuners are going mad with the new Supra

It’s normally a few months after a car goes on sale that potty tuners get their grubby hands on them and start sending power figures into the stratosphere. Not the new Supra.

It’s not even on sale yet – and our palm sweat has barely dried on the steering wheel of our review car – yet tuners have already gone to town on the new A90. Which, given its tortuously lengthy gestation period, is quite ironic. But it’s by no means an accident.

Photography: Mark Riccioni

Before the new Supra was even unveiled, Toyota had already posted a handful of them to tuning shops. One of those was Fat Five Racing, which just so happens to be owned by Japanese drift driver, Daigo Saito. This year the former D1 Grand Prix champ will pilot the new Supra in Japan’s top-flight skid series. But he had to make it fit for purpose.

First job on the list? Siphon as much of the BMW blood from it and spit it into a drip tray. Unsurprisingly, the technical collaboration between Toyota and BMW is a real sticking point with Japanese tuners. To them, the A90 doesn’t feel wholeheartedly Japanese. Which, considering it’s built in Austria and has a German engine, isn’t surprising.

So Fat Five binned the BMW-sourced 3.0-litre turbo and shoved in a legendary and bulletproof JDM heart: the Toyota 2JZ from the MkIV Supra. TG approves of this.

HKS then applied a 3.4-litre stroker kit and a turbo you can fit your head in (complete with two screamer pipes puncturing the bonnet) making it good for 800bhp.

To complete the look, bloated bodywork was draped over the hilariously widened track, the wheel sizes were beefed up, and the suspension was gutted then completely reworked to slam the car but allow for a hilarious amount of camber and seemingly boundless amounts of steering angle.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Things will get a lot crazier from here as the rest of the tuning world already has its angle grinders and gas axes ready in anticipation. Who knows, this might just be the tuner’s tuning car of the decade. Just like its daddy was. 

Now click on for three more iconic Supras...

The inexplicable, supersonic stardom of the Fast and Furious franchise helped make the MkIV Supra one of the most recognisable cars on our planet. Being topless, orange and covered in stickers may have helped.

Thanks to 943bhp from a juiced-up V12 from a Century, Smokey Nagata hit  222.4mph in his streamlined gold Supra on the constant curve of Nardo’s circular test track in southern Italy in 2008.

The legendary swirly green, white and red livery of Toyota’s dominant JGTC car is instantly recognisable to anyone who grew up on a diet of Gran Turismo. Fitted with a four-cylinder, it was Godzilla's arch enemy.