Amid all the other performance car pies Toyota has its fingers in right now – an updated GR Yaris, the brilliant GR86, a new V8 sports car to go GT3 racing with, and possible revivals of the MR2 and Celica – the future of the Toyota Supra has looked on slightly shaky ground.
Late last year, the car was taken off sale in the UK, and after months of Toyota’s British website reading that it was “currently unavailable to order,” it’s now disappeared entirely from the new car lineup there.
Toyota GR Supra – side
Then there were reports back in May that the Supra – together with the BMW Z4 with which it shares the vast majority of its components – could die off altogether in 2026, with plans for a successor for either unclear.
There’s some brighter news about the Supra’s future now though, because Toyota Australia’s vice president for sales, marketing and franchise operations, Sean Hanley, has just unequivocally told CarExpert that the Supra name is sticking around for a while yet.
Toyota GR Supra – interior
“There is no plan to discontinue the Supra brand in this car company. I know that,” said Hanley. That’s in spite of the fact that it appears BMW has no plans to directly replace the Z4: “BMW is not Toyota. The notion that Supra is stopping is purely speculative. And, quite frankly, I have no expectation, sitting here today, that the Supra brand will disappear. At all.”
This lone ranger attitude is somewhat at odds with comments made in June by Tomoya Takahashi, president of Toyota’s GR performance wing, who said that the company would need the help of other car manufacturers to make more sports cars.
Toyota GR Supra – rear
Nevertheless, we’ll happily take any positive news about the Supra’s future, although whether that future includes a presence in Europe isn’t clear – tightening emissions and safety rules are making it increasingly difficult to sell sports cars here, with Toyota’s own GR86 a victim of these and the Alpine A110 soon to go the same way.
