The Toyota Supra is getting a manual transmission

Friday, 29 April 2022

After three years, Toyota is finally giving purists what they want – a three-pedal, shift-it-yourself Supra with full power. And it’s coming to New Zealand.

“Toyota is living up to the promise to make its cars even better with this powertrain change,” said Toyota New Zealand’s general manager of new vehicles and product planning, Steve Prangnell.

“By allowing the driver to interact with the car and select the optimal gear ratio for the road ahead, the GR Supra driver will enjoy the true delights of a manual, rear-wheel drive sports car. Changing gears on a twisty Kiwi road is going to be a massive buzz in the manual Supra.'

The new transmission is a six-speed unit that has the added bonus of being 18kg lighter than the automatic. It comes with rev-matching functionality, which can be switched off in Sport mode if you’d prefer to do everything yourself.

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Manual Supras also get ‘Shift-Light’, which illuminates the rev counter just before the redline to indicate the time to shift.

Toyota hasn’t given the Supra a power bump for 2022, keeping output at 285kW/500Nm for both transmission options. This goes against rumours BMW might see fit to donate the M3 Competition’s 375kW/650Nm engine, which can be had with a manual gearbox overseas.

New colours for 2022, in addition to the Matte Avalanche White of the manual transmission, are Volcanic Ash Gray with copper sparkles and a vivid and silky Dawn Blue. After July, when the manual enters production, GR Supras will ride on 19-inch forged aluminium wheels as standard with styling taken from the GR Yaris. These drop weight by 1.2kg per wheel, Toyota says.

We should see the manual Supra later this year, with pricing to be announced closer to launch.