Sorry, Toyota Purists, But I Just Love The Manual Supra So Much

The Toyota Supra isn't a real Toyota Supra. It's basically a BMW, and most importantly, it doesn't even smell like a new Toyota. I also could not possibly care less because I absolutely love it, and if you're still held up on "principle," then I don't know what to tell you. You're missing a good time just because you don't like the way Toyota went about building a great sports car, and the manual transmission makes it so much better that I'm still a little mad Toyota didn't offer it right out of the gate.

Most of the time, a car doesn't actually need a manual transmission. Automatics get better gas mileage and don't come with the horsepower penalty that they used to, so there's basically no reason to offer them in cars that are meant for economical transportation. And sadly, because corporations treat workers like a cost to be minimized, the majority of cars are now bought with basic, economical transportation in mind. You also aren't going to set any lap records in a hardcore sports car equipped with a manual transmission, so I fully understand automakers going the dual-clutch route for their Serious Track Cars.

But the Toyota Supra is not a Serious Track Car. It's a daily drivable sports car that people buy because they want to have fun, and manual transmissions are more fun. The Supra was begging for a manual transmission the first time I drove it, and now, some three-and-a-half years later, I finally got the chance to spend a little time behind the wheel. Even better, that time was at a race track, and as long as I waited my turn after each lap so other journalists had the chance to go too, I could lap the cars Toyota had at the track until the wheels fell off.

Full Disclosure: Toyota wanted me to drive the new Supra so badly, it flew me out to Fort Worth for the reveal of the new RAV4, put me up in a hotel, rented out a track, and provided gas and tires, as well as food and drinks. Then most of the other journalists that were there went to do something else, leaving me free to lap the track almost as much as I wanted. And before you ask, yes, that all happened a while ago, but I've been thinking about the Supra ever since.

Yes, the one-lap-per-session limitation was annoying, but there were a lot of people who needed their time on the track, so I get it. Thankfully, after a while, most of them succumbed to the need to eat food and disappeared for lunch, leaving only a few of us out there, lapping cars again and again. I may not be anywhere close to the best driver in the industry, but I know free track time when I see it, and I wasn't about to let that go to waste, especially when there are sports cars to be driven. Manual transmission sports cars, in fact.

And after a few laps in the manual Supra, I just couldn't bring myself to care about the BMW bones. Yeah, the shift action felt very BMW, and the engine is a BMW engine, but it just felt good. The turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six sits in that happy middle zone where there's plenty of power to make things fun without being so fast that you get yourself in trouble, and shifting the transmission felt good enough that I quickly forgot about comparisons to other automakers. All I could really focus on was having fun and finding ways to go faster with every lap.

Better drivers probably have more complaints, and I'm sure they're all valid, but I think what impressed me most about driving the manual Supra was just how forgiving it was. When you're swapping between cars every lap, there's no telling how much grip the next car's tires will have, and that made the first couple of corners a total guessing game. One car could be fresh and grippy, while the next one could be slick as hell, and there was only one way to find out. Still, whether I was in a slidey car or a grippy one, I never once felt like I was in any danger of losing control.

Sure, I made plenty of mistakes. I missed apexes. I didn't always brake hard enough. And yeah, maybe my laps would have been faster if I hadn't been driving a manual, but would I have had as much fun? Not at all. And unless there's an actual competition (or at least someone keeping track of lap times), isn't fun more important than squeezing out the last possible tenth of a second? Not that I was ever laying down fast enough laps that tenths of a second would matter in the slightest.

These days, power and acceleration are cheap. You can buy a used EV for less than $20,000 that'll wipe the floor with some serious, new performance cars, at least in a straight line. But how many new cars are truly enjoyable to drive? How many feel like they want you to push them harder but still slide predictably and safely when you mess something up? Heck, how many of them are even available with a manual transmission in the first place?

There are also plenty of cars out there that can out-lap the Supra, but was I thinking about those cars out on the track, either? Nope. I was just focused on how much fun I was having, doing my best to tidy up my laps and enjoying a car that rewarded me learning to drive it better. And had it been my car, I could have simply driven it home at the end of the day because, well, that's one of the big benefits of buying something that isn't a super hardcore, serious track machine.

Is the manual Supra the car I'd buy if I had the $58,695 budget to buy one? I honestly don't know. I've never quite connected with the styling, and $60,000 buys a whole lot of used sports car. But would it at least be on the shortlist in this never-gonna-happen, purely hypothetical scenario? Absolutely.

It isn't just because of the manual transmission, either. That's part of it, but really it's because the whole package comes together. It's balanced, comfortable, not too fast, practical and reliable enough, while also feeling quick, engaging, rewarding and better than any part-BMW/part-Toyota should feel. Of course, the manual transmission does help. It's a sports car, after all. Sports cars deserve manual transmissions, and while I did like the automatic, it was the manual that made me fall in love.

Sorry, Toyota purists.