2023 toyota gr supra a91-mt edition top speed

From minute one of the resurrected Toyota Supra's existence, the automaker hasn't slogged through a day when someone, somewhere, wasn't keyboard-cat-typing furiously into chat rooms or texting their friend(s) about when the ever-loving flip the sports car would get a manual transmission. For 2023, three model years into the modern Supra's life, Toyota finally quiets fans and haters alike as it augments the Supra's standard automatic-transmission offering with three pedals and a proper shift lever. We received a brief and relatively constrained opportunity to sample the manual GR Supra at the GR Corolla's launch at the Utah Motorsports Campus (we'll have our GR Corolla report for you on September 14); here are our thoughts.

Why It's Important

Sports cars, at least traditionally, are generally expected to be sold with manual transmissions—an expectation that is less flexible, it seems, the more attached fans are to a given nameplate or the farther back its lineage goes. Think of the Mazda MX-5 Miata or Porsche 911 as two prime examples. You can count the Supra among this group, too, after Toyota brought it back following a two-decade hiatus but somehow without a stick shift. In answering that call and now delivering a manual option, Toyota parts the clouds with a godlike extension of its corporate hand directly down to its brand die-hards.

Toyota, for what it's worth, says it has been working on a stick the whole time. Engineers needed to source a transmission, which you'd think would be easy given the Supra's BMW lineage—the same chassis underpins the BMW Z4 roadster—but nay. In the end, Toyota settled on a ZF-supplied housing but stuffed it with bespoke internals and gearing; it then tilted the plane of the shift lever slightly off level; the top of the shift knob kind of leans toward the driver and ensures knuckles don't hit the Supra's angled console. The result is a unique-to-the-Supra transmission, along with its own clutch and flywheel, calibration for the traction and stability controls, and a shorter final-drive ratio (3.46:1 versus 3.15:1).

Pros: What We Like

Toyota spent the past few years widening the power gap between the entry-level GR Supra 2.0's 255-hp turbo I-4 and the now-382-hp turbo I-6 installed in Supra 3.0 variants, which are the only versions that get the stick. For drivers, being able to control that power via a traditional standard shifter and clutch pedal is as delicious as playing the engine like a throaty saxophone. We expected the shifter to be BMW-like—figuring the Z4 might ultimately get this transmission, too—yet it feels different. The stick pops into each gate with the same wet-rubber sensation BMW drivers are used to, but the lever itself is far stubbier than a typical BMW unit and works with a notchier overall action. Ditto the clutch pedal, whose stroke is BMW-long but less springy, with a gradual clutch take-up point halfway up. In all, there's a distinctly Japanese feel to this setup that stands in contrast to the rest of the Supra's obvious BMW roots.

Toyota's iMT (Intelligent Manual Transmission) rev-matching function, which is defeatable via a fairly buried onscreen menu for the driver assist functions, proved flawless during our handful of laps on one half of Utah Motorsports' circuit. Should you decide to forgo the rev-match function's auto-blipping of the throttle to smooth downshifts and practice your footwork, the pedal box places the brake pedal right up next to the floor-hinged gas pedal for easy heel-toe action. Engineers also worked to ensure torque bumps during shifts, and a new Hairpin+ function also boosts torque at low speeds when it senses lots of steering angle, again to offset the lack of the auto transmission's torque multiplication.

Cons: What We Don't Like

There is no denying the Supra manual's tardiness to market disappoints, even if it's perfectly timed to coincide with the new Nissan Z's arrival. Maybe that's why after a few mostly third-gear laps in the manual Supra, we were merely whelmed when we took it out for a brief spin on the track's feeder roads to row up and down through more of the gears. There are no bad behaviors here, but the satisfaction of finally having the Supra's manual available feels hollow, like when your significant other caves and belatedly does something you asked them to do. We probably just need more time driving a stick-equipped version before we forget about the long wait.

Our only other complaints? By hitching the manual exclusively to the GR Supra 3.0, Toyota has by default made it a pricey proposition. A GR Supra 3.0 starts at $53,595, whereas a Premium trim example runs $56,745 and the new A91 Special Edition costs $59,440. Of course, if you want a six-cylinder Supra, that's how much you'll pay—the stick is a no-cost option—but Supra 2.0s start at more than $12,000 less. Hey, if you want a four-cylinder, manual Toyota sports car, there's the roughly $30,000 GR86.

There's also no getting around the fact that, without the automatic transmission's torque multiplication, the manual Supra is slower. Toyota estimates the deficit in 0-60-mph timing at 0.3 second relative to the automatic Supra. Fuel economy likewise takes a hit, with the EPA figures dropping by 3 to 4 mpg across the board.

Bottom Line

The 2023 Toyota GR Supra finally gets the transmission we've all pined for, and it seems like enough but not much more.