Toyota Supra 2019 prototype first drive

First, then – getting into the Supra. Despite the drapery inside, you can sense it has is a BMW-centric interior. The switchgear is BMW, the driving position is long and straight, the gearlever is BMW’s. Does that matter? I doubt it. The iDrive multimedia system is better than Toyota’s alternative, although there’ll surely be a Toyota face on that, as there is on the instrument binnacle, while the steering wheel is thinner of rim than BMW uses and round. Praise be on both of those counts.

You sit low, peering through a letterbox windscreen with a high window line and the curved bonnet spearing off into the distance. No idea whether it is (it probably is) but it immediately feels bigger than, say, a Porsche 718 Cayman, whose corners are easier to place, owing to better visibility. You are aware at once where the Supra’s engine is.

It’s a refined engine and drivetrain, though. If there’s work still to be done on the calibration, it’d be news to me. A six is always smooth but a BMW six, turbocharged here, is incredibly so. Step-off is smooth and the Supra, even in standard drive mode, is unencumbered by the response modern autos sometimes give, where they feel like they’re trying to lug things out from revs that are too low. Stop-start wasn’t functioning, which probably helps, mind.

Push the Sport button and the throttle and gearbox response sharpens, but there are gearshift paddles, so if you want a quicker response it’s probably more rewarding to take control yourself. There’s no word on a manual gearbox yet, but Toyota would like one.

The Supra rides well too – better than, while on the same size tyres as, a BMW M4: bespoke Michelin Pilot Super Sports, 255/35 R19 at the front and 275/35 R19 at the rear.

Passive dampers will be standard but adaptive dampers were fitted to the cars we tried. These, too, firm up via the Sport button, as does the steering weight, although in regular daily driving there’s no need: the underlying compliance is welcome but there’s no sense that the body weight is getting away from it.

The Supra feels like a stable, well-rounded sports coupé. Its engineers say they did 90% of its development work on the road, and I think it shows. In town, on the motorway, it’s mature in a way that, say, a BMW M2 Competition or Alpine A110, perhaps even a Cayman, are not.

It’s only when you get on to a country road, then, that you start to push the boundaries of the standard suspension setting’s limits. The steering is smooth, progressive, sharper off the straight-ahead than some front-engined coupés, presumably to give an extra sense of agility that, compared with a 718, the Supra simply can’t have. Body roll builds progressively, but this is where you want the dampers firmed because, without it, as you get back on the throttle and the differential begins to worry about acceleration, you feel the body’s mass shifting in a way I don’t think you would in a Cayman.

With the dampers tightened the sensation is much alleviated, with not too much loss in compliance, and there’s a pleasing, reassuring balance. Hints of understeer on the way in, likewise oversteer on the way out, not unlike, say, an Aston Martin Vantage, only a bit lighter. A BMW M2 with both more compliance and control (or an M2 Competition with more compliance).

Swapping into and following in a GT86, though, you’re reminded of the advantages that minimal mass gives you: sure, the GT86’s engine is wheezy but, working it hard, you can carry speed and enjoy delicate fingertip steering responses that are denied to the bigger car. It’s a reminder of how exceptional the GT86’s chassis is; which I suspect wasn’t the objective of the exercise.

But still, there are other things a Supra can do. The engine is extremely sweet, smooth and broadly responsive but happy to rev. In Sport mode, a flap opens in the exhaust and Toyota says there’s more work to do on the induction noise, probably via sound tubes off the engine – so real, rather than fake noise. But, unlike a Cayman, you’re happy to let it sing, or sit at high revs pre-overtake.

And it’s clearly a chassis that can handle more power. Nowhere is that more evident than on a circuit where, Sport mode engaged, the Supra displays the same balance as it does on the road, only enhanced. The suspension maintains good control but serious compliance over bumps or kerbs; where those would thump through in an M2 Competition, the Supra glides across, as a Cayman might. It doesn’t rotate as willingly as a Cayman or, from my limited experience, an Alpine A110, but that’s no surprise given where its engine is.