Compared to the four-cylinder Z4 and it's 255-horsepower four-pot, the Supra's much beefier six makes all the difference. Personally, I thought the Z4 was a very nice automobile, but in my review I wrote that its was too much machine. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it; I did indeed. But the four-cylinder version I sampled, even at modest displacement, was a muscle roadster. (I'll take a wimpy Miata any day, thanks very much.)
The Supra, meanwhile, is a proper, fixed-roof sports car. The best comparison I could come up with was the Subaru BRZ (or the mechanically similar Toyota 86); these are snappy two-doors with small engines and rear-wheel-drive. They're a joy to drive. The Supra, meanwhile, takes their virtues and adds power, power, power. And one feels it. This car has massive punch and ferocious composure. It's hot in a straight line, but it's a thing of beauty when slung into a corner, and the steering is just about perfect.
I thought the brakes seemed a little small for the motor's output, but in practice their moderate grab was more user-friendly that some of the more hulking setups are tested. And while the Z4's stiff chassis felt as though it might have been overcompensated for the lack of a solid roof, the Supra's equally crisp architecture somehow struck me as more forgiving. In many ways, it was sort of perfect.
For about $57,000, this could be among the best values in road-to-track cars on the market. Not for nothing, but the horsepower level was ideally matched to the car — throttling the Supra is a seamless addictive experience, almost devoid of turbo lag, and the sensation of the rear tires locking in and digging down under acceleration is the stuff of dreams.
A six-speed manual would have made the Supra more tempting, but one is supposedly in the works. The eight-speed automatic was competent, but of course it had three more gears that I wanted to use. So I found myself in auto-manual mode for most of my test time, gleefully paddle-shifting and watching the tachometer dance. Third and fourth gears in this car are dazzling. The bottom line is that although the Supra and the Z4 are made at the same factory, they're miles apart — and at $10,000 less, the Supra is the superior machine both in terms of price and performance.
Was it worth the wait? Good question. I wasn't waiting. But my time with the Supra left me craving more, and it continued a theme in my life of truly digging Japanese sports cars. Even if this one speaks with a slight Austrian accent.