Cars I Hate: the JZA80 Supra

Honestly, I’m sick of people talking up cars just because of brand clout or internet trends instead of looking at the actual car. I expected to be irritated by all the purist crying over the Toyota Supra, but to be completely real with you, most of the hot takes out there on this car are absolute trash. And here's why.

The Broken Legacy Nobody Talks About

To kick things off, if you ask any internet "car guy," they'll tell you the Supra is this sacred lineage of design. But you have to be literally BLIND to look at the history of this car and think Toyota had a consistent vision.

The Mark 1, Mark 2, and Mark 3 were completely logical. They were classic 80s wedge GTs with sharp creases, clean horizontal lines, long hoods, and pop-up headlights. You could look at an A70 and clearly see where it came from. But then 1993 rolled around and Toyota dropped the A80 (Mk4), and the visual continuity evaporated into thin air.

The A80 abandoned every single design cue of the A70. Sharp angles were replaced by swollen, bulbous curves, and the sleek wedge turned into a rounded, heavy-set jellybean. If you took the badges off an A70 and an A80, a casual observer wouldn't even guess they were made by the same brand. It was a total, abrupt about-face. Yet somehow, purists treat the A80 like a sacred template and pretend it fits right into the family tree. What a joke.

The Fast & Furious Illusion

Before we move on, I have to make a special mention of the absolute myth surrounding the Mk4’s legendary status. Let's be real: the Mk4 is only famous because of The Fast and the Furious (alongside the R34 GT-R). Pop culture catapulted it into mainstream stardom, but before 2001, it was an expensive, heavy grand tourer sitting on dealer lots in a dying sports-car market.

Without Hollywood brainwashing everyone, people would have judged the era on pure aesthetics and actual engineering; and in that arena, the Mitsubishi GTO (3000GT) was far superior. The GTO had actual supercar proportions, aggressive low-slung styling, pop-up lights that transitioned into sleek integrated projectors, and active aerodynamics that actually did something, unlike the A80’s static, oversized hoop wing. But because Paul Walker drove an orange Mk4, automotive history got rewritten, and people started pretending the A80 was the peak of 90s design.

Hypocritical Hate: A70-to-A80 vs. A80-to-A90

Now, when Toyota finally unveiled the A90 (Mk5), the internet broke out into collective outrage over how "un-Supra-like" it looked compared to the A80. Picture me unimpressed by this reaction.

If you accept the jump from the A70 to the A80; which was a 100% total abandonment of previous styling; you have zero standing to be angry with the A90. Visually, the A90 actually deviates LESS from the A80 than the A80 did from the A70!

Toyota's designers bent over backward trying to pull A80 heritage cues into the Mk5. For example: the arched rear ducktail spoiler directly mirrored the A80's rear wing curve;  the quad-element taillights are a modernized callback to its predecessor's four-circle cluster; and the muscular rear haunches of the new-gen Supra try to mimic its rounded hips.

The A80 gave literally zero credit to the A70, but the A90 actively tried to pay homage to the A80. Whining about the A90 breaking design language while worshiping the A80 is pure visual hypocrisy.

The A90 Refresh & The BMW Engine Whining

Don't get me wrong—the A90 isn't perfect. I actually think the A90 is a nice refresh to keep the nameplate alive, but it definitely suffers from over-the-top visual tricks. Because Toyota crammed the design onto a short-wheelbase BMW Z4 chassis, they had to stretch and squeeze the bodywork. You get a stubby rear end attached to an unnaturally long nose, heavy over-sculpted lines, and a bunch of fake plastic vents slapped onto the hood and doors that cheapen the look under close scrutiny.

But the absolute WORST take from purists is dunking on the A90 for having a BMW engine under the hood. Calling it "just a rebadged BMW" completely ignores how Toyota has built performance cars for decades. People act like the legendary 2JZ was birthed in a Toyota vacuum, completely forgetting that Toyota heavily relied on Yamaha to engineer and co-develop their best performance heads—including the 2000GT, the 4A-GE, the 3S-GTE, and the 1JZ foundation that paved the way for the 2JZ itself.

Complaining that Toyota partnered with BMW (who literally make some of the best inline-six engines on the planet) for the A90 makes zero sense when the entire cult following around older Toyota motors relies on engines Yamaha helped build.

If I was to rank the Supra generations, it would start of with the A70, then the A90 in second place. Third place would be held by the A60, and then the A40/50 (1st generation Supra). The A80? Dead last.

At the end of the day, cars like the Porsche 911 spent decades carefully refining a single, recognizable shape. The Supra, on the other hand, went from an 80s wedge, to a movie-hyped 90s jellybean, to a hyper-sculpted modern sports car with fake vents. The A90 brought the nameplate back to life with dynamic performance, but the massive outrage surrounding its look and its engine is built on selective memory, clout-chasing, and pure nostalgia.