Do you ever have a peek at who’s driving when you overtake someone? Usually it's because they’re a) driving incredibly slowly or b) hogging the middle lane, but the cursory glare of disapproval can often reveal some bizarre car-owner combinations. Just a few weeks ago, I was stuck behind a McLaren GT going 40mph on a motorway slip road. When I eventually got past, I noticed a lady of… er… senior years behind (and sitting very close to) the wheel of it. Frustration turned to immediate admiration, and I’ve been wondering about the story behind that car and its driver ever since.
Anyway, the reason I bring that up is because of this A80 Toyota Supra. We all know it as one of the holy grail Japanese sports cars of the '90s, if not of all time, and features one of the most tuneable engines ever conceived. That goes some way to explaining why of the seven fourth-generation Supras that are currently for sale on PH, six of them are modified. This RZ-S has had so much work done that you wonder how much of the original car remains (it does look a bit of a beast, mind). The car we have here though is one of the very few that, according to the ad, has been left completely stock by its retiree owner.
A pensioner driving an old Supra is surely every bit as cool as it sounds, and not as far-fetched as you may think either. It’s easy to forget what a stock A80 looks like because they’re few and far between, but they weren’t the uber-focused sports coupes they’re often portrayed as. Nope, the Supra is more GT leaning in original format, with much of its underpinnings shared with the wafty Toyota Soarer and it came with chunky leather seats, cruise control and air con as standard. Left completely untouched, the A80 Supra’s a big old softie.
That being said, Toyota didn’t just rebody the Soarer and call it a day. The company took a Gordon Murray-style approach to weight saving, with the aluminium parts, a magnesium-alloy steering wheel and hollow carpet fibres contributing to a 100kg reduction over the A70. Still, it’s the engine that tuners go crazy for. The 3.0-litre ‘2JZ’ in the model we have here is indeed the Twin Turbo version, which in European (UK included) guise developed 330hp if left alone. Tuned, however, it could comfortably develop 1,000hp and there are plenty of videos out there of modders who have extracted as much as 3,000hp from the block - hugely impressive for an engine that’s over 30 years old.
Equally as impressive is the condition of the car we have here. Registered in 1993, it was bought by its previous owner five years later and has remained in their possession ever since. In that time, it’s retained a full service history and has apparently been stored in a dry heated garage for the last 26 years, which should bring extra piece of mind given that Japanese cars tend to wither away at the sign of a salty British road. The only caveat is that it’s an automatic, but manual swapping is possible and there are countless specialists and tuners out there that should be able to sort it for you.
On the plus side, being an auto means you won’t need to part with silly amounts of money to get hold of it. Okay, so £49,990 is hardly cheap, but a like-for-like manual would no doubt carry a considerable premium. That’s money that could go towards a manual conversion, or you could do as the previous owner has and leave it as it for another 26 years.
SPECIFICATION |TOYOTA SUPRA TWIN TURBO (A80)
Engine: 2,997 straight-six, twin-turbocharged
Transmission: four-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive
Power (hp): 330@5,600rpm
Torque (lb ft): 315@4,000rpm
MPG: 25
CO2: N/A
Year registered: 1993
Recorded mileage: 70,000
Price new: £41,999
Yours for: £49,990
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