(first posted 11/28/2012) Toyota’s Supra had a rather linear evolution, unlike the Datsun/Nissan Z-car, which lost its way and re-invented itself how many times? Starting out as a soft-sporty semi-luxo coupe with a lazy six borrowed from Toyota’s sedans, it became distinctly sportier and harder-edged with each of its four generations. The final iteration, the turbocharged Supra Mk4, has become the stuff of legends, and tuners. We’re going to take a look at the first three generations in the coming days, so things may start off a little slow, but should be moving pretty quickly by the time we hit the Mk3.
The Supra started life in 1978 as the Celica XX, a JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) only model, by grafting a 5″ XXL-long front end extension to the Celica, and dropping the venerable 2.0 liter SOHC M-EU inline six in that suitably lengthened engine bay (I assume its safe to assume that’s why they put the long nose on it, but with JDM cars, you never know). The M series six goes back to 1965, and had powered a variety of Toyota sedans, like the Crown and Corona Mk II.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD23ar32Uqs
Here’s a JDM tv ad to get us in the proper vintage mood (for some crazy reason, this one doesn’t want to be embedded here)
In 1979, the renamed Celica Supra appeared on our shores to take up the battle with Nissan’s softified Z car, and Detroit’s emasculated pony cars. The US version came with the larger 2.6 version of the M engine, shared with the Cressida. Despite Toyota’s first application of EFI (Electronic Fuel Injection), it made no more than the JDM 2.0, all of 110 hp. Plush and lush, but maybe not all that powerful.
But it was 1979, and for time, a smooth fuel injected six and a five speed transmission were hardly common fare from Detroit. This was a car that the early Toyota adopters saw as a well-built alternative to the rough and crude Camaro and such. Opposite ends of that spectrum, for sure.
I tried to find some contemporary reviews of the gen1 Supra on the web, but they’ve all disappeared. I never drove one of these, but my memory tells me that the reviews generally questioned the value of the substantial price increase over the lighter and nimbler four-cylinder Celica. The Supra was a smooth freeway flyer, and most of them came loaded with the automatic, AC, etc. which only added to the front-end mass and dulled its modest sporty ambitions further. That would have to wait for the Mk2.
I do have a major soft spot for the un-Supra Celica of this generation, and we’ll take a close look at both the liftback and the coupe versions of them soon. It was a brilliant and clean design; a true standout of its day. Significantly, it was designed at Toyota’s brand new CALTY studios in California, staffed by more than one former GM designner. Do we see touches of the 1975 Chevy Monza hatchback?
But the Supra’s supra-sized nose and its other distinguishing trim only messes up a balanced and clean design. I resented the gen1 Supra for that, and the fact that it brought nothing truly ambitious along with the name and price. Once again, that would come soon enough.
For its final year in 1981, the six was enlarged to 2.8 liters with 116 hp. A Sports Performance Package also became an available option, including sport suspension, raised white letter tires, and front and rear spoilers. The extra six ponies and the SPP hardly turned the Supra into a racer, but it clearly hinted at the direction it was heading in its next incarnation.
My father bought a 2nd-generation Celica brand new in 1978, the first year of that model. It was one of the best cars he ever owned, and it also happened to be the car that brought me home from the hospital as a newborn 30 years ago.
While it was very reliable, what it was not was durable. Spending ten years in snowy Vermont did not do wonders for the body, and by 1986 the Celica was an unfortunate rustbucket. It finally failed inspection in early 1988 and was immediately traded in on a brand-new Corolla.
I still miss that Celica – I have never forgotten its long-throw shifter for the 5-speed, or the cheap plastics and vinyls that covered the interior from top to bottom. I have fond memories of sitting in my stroller, watching my dad try to repair that 20R. Today, he owns two Volvos.
“…cheap plastics and vinyls that covered the interior from top to bottom.”
Were the sun visors still squishy at that time?
Wow that takes me back- Yes they were! I think they were a loop of wire with a piece of 3/4″ thick loose insulation felt inside, with thin welded vinyl surrounding the whole thing. As they got older and baggier, I remember as a kid being able to squish the felt and feel its outline inside the visor. Then being told by my dad ‘Don’t screw with the car’, then doing it again, then being told off and so on.
I also remember the switches were very high quality and functioned with a nice ‘click’- even the stalks were very nice. As a child under 8, I remember comparing such nuances to the Aries we had, and was able to determine that the Toyota was made better. The fact that the switches were still on the dashboard instead of in pieces of shattered chromed-plastic on the floor was the giveaway.
At the time though, I always thought of old Toyotas like Paul thought of his dad’s stripper Fords- cheap dad cars with nasty vinyl seats, no legroom in the back, (made worse by dad’s hard hat in the footwell) and absolutely nothing fun about them. There wasn’t any broughaminess to be seen, nor was there any driving pleasure. Basically, it was an old Maytag without the wringer- something very reliable, yet since Mom was the one who had to manage the thing, Dad never needed to replace it.
Toyota must have been awestruck by the HUGE B pillar GM used in it’s full-size coupes when they dropped the pillarless models in the mid-70’s and thought: We want that, too!
So, what did they do? This. Only instead of a vinyl top, they stuck on a big plastic cover that looked like it was stuck on.
THEN Chrysler saw what Toyota did and said: We gotta have that, too!
So, they stuck on an even BIGGER piece of plastic on their Omni coupes and viola! A Charger!
Thanks, guys.
Anyone wonder why I hate the 1970’s (at least untl I married in 1977) after September 1972?
I had a friend who asked me to look over a used Celica liftback which they ended up buying. I recall it as a nice driving car. As mentioned above, I do recall the fairly long shift throws. It was not, however, a Supra.
For whatever reason, these cars were just not on my radar at the time. Another friend bought a Mitsu/Dodge Challenger around 1978 or so. It seemed to me the functional equivalent of one of these, and seemed like a nice car, but just not something that really appealed to me.
Actually, I would like to be able to wind the clock back and check out one of these as a used commuter car. But they are long gone from the midwest, and have been for years.
I just can’t get into the liftback of this generation Celica/Supra. I really like this series of Celica in the coupe, looking forward to the feature, and of course the MA61 one, bit of a fan.
I’d also note that the M engine (in twin cam form) was also found in the 2000GT, regarded by many as Japan’s first supercar.
It’s also worth noting that in Japan there was a turbo version of this model, equipped with the M-TEU engine, which would’ve livened it up a little. Rumoured to have been the first turbocharged Japanese car engine, and almost certainly the first Japanese car turbo straight 6. I’ve driven the 60 series with the same engine and it really wasn’t amazing, but it was an old and abused example, and equipped with auto trans, so I guess wasn’t really a good example of how that engine could be.
In conclusion, I’m not a fan of this car from what I have heard of it’s dynamics or it’s styling, BUT I am ever grateful that it paved the way for the later models (especially the 60-series “Mk2” and 80-series “Mk4”).
I think that the stretched nose makes the hatchback look better, though still not good. All in all I don’t like the styling of this generation, they look too bloated to me.
My aunt had a ’79 Celica-Supra when I was a kid. This was in the early 90’s.
It was a 5speed, black and grey interior and painted bright yellow (I’m sure not the original color) We used to call it the banana.
I kind of have a soft spot for these cars because of the memories of riding around with my aunt (who was in her early 20s therefore I thought she was cool)
I can’t remember the last time I saw one of these outside of a junkyard.
Wow, that beige example is in remarkable condition, even for Eugene. Nice find.
In the late Eighties or early Nineties a neighbor across the street had one of these in dark brown. It was in pretty fair shape too. I think it was a Supra, but it could have been a Celica.
I always liked these hatchbacks-the Celica version too. I still have my 1/64 Supra Pocket Cars–a red one with a beige interior and a white one with “Supra” spelled out in orange stripes. Anybody else remember Pocket Cars (Tomica in its home market)?
I think the longer nose really enhances the design, seems to flow better to my mind. There’s an amazingly well preserved one here in my small burg with colors identical to the JDM one in the second photo. The current owner’s grandma bought it new, he restricts his enjoyment to sunny summer days as it’s all original and only has a few small rust blisters behind the rear wheels.
Seeing this it’s difficult not to also think of its arch-competitor, the Datsun 280ZX. Would love to see a CC on that. Steve Wozniak even did a TV commercial for it back in the day:
Back in the day, I always thought the 2nd gen Celica looked good, especially compared to the faux-Mustang fastback version of the Gen 1. And the Supra looked like a misproportioned caricature of the much more common Celica. But after 30 years, when neither car is a daily sight, the longer Supra looks OK. I will never say the same about the 260Z or 280ZX 2+2 …
I actually have a copy of a Car and Driver issue from 1981 with a comparison test of the Supra against the Buick Regal Sport Coupe with the turbo V6. If I can find it, I’ll post some of their impressions here.
I have an article from the July ’81 Car Craft magazine titled “East meets West” which focuses on the rise of import performance, and Toyota in particular as they just established TRD here in California. There is a one page highlight on the ’81 Sports Option Supra. The mouth breathing, Camaro worshiping, editors loved it, turned a 17.47/79mph in the quarter, was half-second faster than a stock 255ci Mustang, and came within four-tenths of a modified 305ci 81 Z/28. Feel the power…. I heart the 80’s!
I have a full road test from a 79 Car & Driver, let me see if I can dig it up. I recall C&D called it part 280ZX part Monte Carlo. I like the longer nose Supra version over the regular Celica version, its “E-Type” ish. I havent seen a 1st, or 2nd, or even 3rd gen Supra in a while.
The second gen Celica came on the heels of the Corolla SR5 and first gen Accord. All were terrific cars and Japan Inc. was on a roll.
I remember reading a Road & Track review of the ’76 SR5 that said something like “this wasn’t the original opening for this article. Instead we used that for the new Accord which is an even more impressive car”.
VW brought its A game with a well-sorted Scirocco in ’78. Then Ford hit a grand slam with the ’79 Fox Mustang.
The 80s started on a high note and ended up being a pretty good decade for car guys, thanks to the Japanese competition from the mid-70s on.
The second gen Celica was loaded with niceties like full instrumentation, remote fuel/trunk releases, 5-speed manual, split folding seats and power steering. The equipment load and refinement levels broke new ground for such a compact, affordable car.
Inflation was sky high during the Carter era and all I remember about the Supra version was that it was crazy expensive.
I think the FRS could use some fender mounted side mirrors.
My Dad bought a used ’81 in the late ’80s. God knows why. With a 5 speed it felt torquey enough around town, but it wasn’t really that quick. It was definitely more Monte Carlo than 280ZX. Lots of body lean for a Japanese car of that era, it was pretty much a highway kind of car, except the seats weren’t great. Everything worked though, and kept working up until the day the head gasket predictably let go. Replacing it was a time consuming job and I convinced him to sell it shortly afterward. I saw it frequently when I went back to the old home town up until about 5 years ago. I haven’t seen one as nice as the example in the photos for a long time though.
I don’t think even Toyota was sure what these cars were supposed to be.
I seem to recall quite a few of the Toyota straight sixes of the era being scrapped because of spun bearings. Even replacement engines were hard to find since they were usually bad, too. Please correct me if I am wrong!
Lots of Toyota crowns with Holden motors in them in OZ though why other than its an easy swap I dont know I had a 2.6 4M in a MK2 Corona great engine never missed a beat
A few years ago my mechanic was transplanting a Holden 202 into a Vanden Plas 4 Litre R. I queried why the 202 was popped into so many vehicles and he said for him it came down to dimensions – that the bottom of the 202 was quite narrow so fitted more readily into older cars with narrow frames. Sounds plausible.
The cost of a recon on those 4 litre RR engines would make your eyes water I remember one in Whangarei years ago with a 283 Chevy implant headers out thru the inner guards it didnt fit.
I like this car. Very cool, and kudos to Toyota for taking the very unusual step of stretching the car’s mid-section.
Starting in the late 70s, Cars from Japan started to change. I grew up thinking they could only be 4 cyl penalty-boxes, so I was always amazed and wowed every time they developed something luxurious,
A 6 cylinder was a pretty big deal for a Celica back then, and so was all the chrome and tech-y doo-dads. Same goes for the 810 Maxima and the Cressida, and then the Legend, Ls and Q45 later in the decade.
I had a 1972 Celica hardtop coupe, so I noticed the evolution of that generation through the 1977-1978 hatchbacks. Therefore the first ’79 Celica I saw, a hatchback, elicited a “What the hell was that?!” reaction, and a quick U-turn to follow it until I could see an emblem. I’m pretty sure I was still driving the 1975 Monza 2+2 at that time, and I didn’t see anything in common with it and the new Celica styling. After I saw the Celica coupe I decided I liked that better than the hatchback.
Love the ‘steam iron, gravy boat, or possibly caped giraffe’ emblem on classic Supras.
Viking ship?
Dragon?
Viking ship would be odd on a Japanese car, but that’s what it looks like to me. More appropriate on a Volvo, methinks. “Caped giraffe” made me laugh!
If anyone is still puzzling about it, it’s a dragon boat!
i didn’t know this car existed – we only got the short nose variant in Europe, but it was a far better resolved design than the previous Celica, and proved to be popular.
In 1979, I was working in a Pittsburgh, PA steel mill. No one, absolutely no one, would be caught dead in a Japanese car. (A lot of Pacific WW2 vets still were very bitter.) The very few foreign cars I can remember in the parking lot were a BMW and a Volvo. The BMW guy was a bearded wierdo, and the Volvo guy was a 60 ish bachelor.
Any Japanese cars would have had serious vandalism done. That was just the way it was. Me personally, at that time, I could not conceive someone even wanting a Japanese car. Rolls, Jag, Mercedes, yes, but Toyota or Datsun, no way.
After the initial Supra generation, Toyota didn’t so much trade personal luxury for sport as decide there was a market for both. When the second-generation Supra arrived in 1981, Toyota also introduced the Soarer, a personal luxury coupe sharing the Supra platform, but with different styling and various high-tech features like touchscreen controls.
The U.S. market didn’t get the Soarer until 1991 — as the Lexus SC400/SC300 — probably due to the Voluntary Restraint Agreement that limited total sales volume of Japanese cars here, so Toyota marketed luxury and performance versions of the Mk2 Supra instead, with different features and options. A small handful of JDM Soarers have shown up here in the hands of collectors, though, and they are pretty neat if you have a soft spot for Japanese high tech.
Dad’s all time favorite car was one of these, in the same gold color. It was not a sports car, but a competent, efficient cruiser. One thing I remember is the separate electric overdrive with the knob on the dash. While it may have been less agile than the same generation Celica, the Mk II Supra felt even less so at low speeds, He bought one of those and hated it. Driving it reminded me a little bit of an E-type Jaguar.
I’m ashamed to admit this, but back in 1979 I was an 18 year old spoiled brat. When this car was introduced in the fall of ’79, I was able to convince myself AND my father that my 1976 Atlantik Blue over Palomino BMW 2002 wasn’t up to the task required to get me from Bryn Mawr, PA to Bucknell University 4 hours away in Lewisburg. I therefore needed the space and reliable newness of a black 1979 Celica Supra just like the one pictured above (sans the Japanese market fender mirrors.) I wanted that car very badly and so did many, many people. As I recall, it had a significant dealer mark-up slapped onto it (who cares, I wasn’t paying!) and even with that shameless mark-up, the car was a major sales hit from day one.
I know right? Crazy but there it is; the BMW, a legend in it’s own time traded without a second thought for a “surface insect” like the Supra.
And I LOVED the car. It’s in my top 5 all time favorite drives. WHY? I can’t tell you why. Toyota had/has a way of making crap desirable. I loved so many silly things about that car: I LOVED the climate-control with its special sensor embedded into the dashboard, the AM/FM cassete deck and rear speakers. The antennae was embedded into the windshield. It had power windows and cruise control and the dashboard had dials surrounded by this squishy black material meant to look like leather. It had gauges for everything and a cutout hole for each, making the instrument panel resemble a Japanese “bento” compartmentalized lunch box. I also loved the alloy wheels and the fact that I drove a six cylinder car. It had a small courtesy light with a switch in the carpeted hatch area which had color-keyed package restraint belts that formed the letter “Y” across the highly visible hatch floor. It was a trend-setter with its body-color bumper caps and piano-black B panel with “Celica Supra” embossed on it in vulgar vaguely Samurai-esque gold lettered font. In sum, it hit every superficial hot button of that era, trust me, I lived it.
The car wasn’t fast that’s true, but what car was fast in 1979? It did, however have a nasty bite to it and one that scared me shit-less on countless occasions; the suspension didn’t just suck, it could be a widow-maker. The poor suspension came up many times over many different and terrible road surfaces, all of which can be easily found in PA. The one that stays with me to this day happened without fail. Heading south from I80, the Northeast Extension of the Penna Turnpike enters the Lehigh Valley via the “Lehigh Tunnel” which bores through Blue Mountain. This was my route
home to Bryn Mawr from Bucknell whenever I saw the need to go home. This unique to Supra event chilled me to the core and shattered my driving confidence, which was unnaturally high, supported as it was by sheer ballsy-ness … of the kind only an 18 year old American male can muster: at speed and at the precise apex of a tight right curve, the rear end would do a bizarre hop/bounce out from under the car and then, whipsaw and shimmy itself back into, you know, the normal state of things: such as when the front set and the rear set of wheels of a given car are both heading in roughly the same direction, one after the other.
To this day I’ll never forget or forgive the Supra for this shitty move and to this day I will bet you my future Powerball winnings that PennDot has still managed to declined to resurface this offending, frost-heaved concrete slab of mid-Atlantic loveliness.
Wow – you’re experience with the Supra for that rear-end “boogie” reminds me of a similar experience I had with my dad’s 79 510. I was 17 and a friend and I were um, sort of, racing down a back road in my town – he was driving his parent’s Citation – a much faster car than my Dad’s 510. Anyway we hit this little bump, crest, or whatever, in the road – and the little 510’s rear end hopped to the left – then came back to straight – one of the scariest moments of my life. And obviously one I remember to this day.
A beautiful area, Bryn Mawr. My grandparents lived there in the 60s-70s on Rock Creek Road. It was a fairly modest (for the area) plantation-style ranch dating to the early 1950s. They sold it in the late 70s and moved to Wynnewood. Back for one of their funerals, I drove by. That house has been razed and replaced by a much bigger house. My father grew up not so far away in Rosemont on Curwin Road. I always loved my fairly rare visits there. Tastykakes and Scrapple!
As for your Celica, this is one of my favorite things about this site – detailed recall from people who owned and drove cars that I had no first-hand experience with, like this Supra.
Original brochure from the “75 Years of TOYOTA” website
http://toyota.vo.llnwd.net/o29/toyota/digitalcatalog/60010185/pageview.html#page_num=1
The data-packed “75 Years of TOYOTA” top page
http://www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75years/vehicle_lineage/family_tree/index.html
(I didn’t know, for example, that the Toyota Crown had a body-on-frame construction until the 1992 model year)
The JDM brochure is still live, but the URL is now:
https://www.toyota.co.jp/jpn/company/history/75years/vehicle_lineage/catalog/60010185/pageview.html
There’s a two-page lovingly illustrating all of the various convenience features, including the pull-out map light.
The “Un-Supra” 2nd gen Celica
http://www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75years/vehicle_lineage/car/id60009986B/
Sweet looking car. I’ve always preferred the 1979-81 Toyota Celica Supra over the 1978-79 Celica or the 1982-86 Celica Supra.
I actually saw one of these heading southbound on the Florida’s Turnpike south of Orlando in early 1978. I knew what it was because I’d seen Celica XX pictures in magazines, but it was several months before the car would be officially introduced stateside. I assume that what I saw was a test vehicle.
I never really cared for this generation of Supra, the one that followed was much more appealing. For starters, they were obviously Celicas with longer “noses”, but aside from that was that there seemed to be just 3 colors available: white, black, or the rose-beige pictured here. Yet, the Celica of this generation is one of my favorites, even though as a driver it’s nothing special.
I went for a ride in my neighbor’s new ’79 Supra that was dark red with matching leather interior, a beautiful car. I know it doesn’t have the performance of later Supras, but this is my favorite generation just for the way it looks inside and out, especially compared to the often misshapen Japanese cars of the day (I’m looking at you Datsun). The extended front looked wonderfully sensuous then and still does – the “RWD proportions” everyone wants nowadays.
Never actually drove or rode in one of these, but I did sit in one as a kid and remember being very impressed. The local Toyota dealer “just happened” to give my dad one of these as a loaner, and I crawled around inside for an enjoyable afternoon. I recall a lot of – for us Corona owners – luxury touches, including vents for the rear-seat passengers, if I recall correctly. *That* was impressive, especially to someone who also spent many miles in the back of a Beetle.
Yes, aimable and switchable A/C vents in the B pillars, and don’t forget the map light that pulled out of the center console and could be aimed anywhere. I rode back there too as my neighbor across the street had one. Plushest Japanese car I’d ever been in at the time. The first Car & Driver review of the Supra couldn’t get over that you could now spend over $10,000 for a TOYOTA (!!!)
Ah, yes; I’d forgotten the map light. That was mighty cool.
It’s worth noting for the record that the 2.6-liter Celica Supra was definitely more powerful than the JDM 2-liter. Japanese-market power ratings of this period are JIS gross, which are more generous than SAE net figures. Japan’s 1978 emissions standards were actually tougher than ours, so there’s no reason to assume the JDM 4M-EU was any more powerful than the U.S. version. (Gross rating was 138 hp/140 PS.) My guess would be that the M-EU, which claimed 123 hp (125 PS) gross, probably made something between 95 and 100 net hp and less torque than the four-cylinder 20R and 22R engines.
Side tidbit: that baroque-looking EFI badge was also used for one year only on 1981 Cressidas, as a kid that’s how I distinguished between pre-facelift 81/82 Cressies.
At least for a while in that period, Toyota had registered “EFI” as a trademark in Japan, so while other manufacturers adopted electronic fuel injection, they couldn’t abbreviate it like that in ads and brochures.
Some Toyota factory literature referred to “EFI-D” or “EFI-L” to indicate what type of injection the engines used. Toyota electronic injection in this era was built by Nippondenso (part of the Toyota corporate group at that point, although they sold stuff like starter motors to other Japanese OEMs) under license from Bosch, and might be based on either L-Jetronic or D-Jetronic, depending on the engine. (Toyota kept using variations of the latter, with MAP metering rather than a MAF sensor, for a surprisingly long time.)
Admittedly I never drove one, so.. with that in mind.
I remember when they came out, I can’t say I was wow’d by the basic Celica, but the Supra with the longer hood even less so. Ad a disciple of R&T and C+D at the time, and always a numbers freak, I looked at the numbers and IIRC both 0-60 and 1/4 mile were the same between both Celicas. 6 cylinders got you the same acceleration, but thirstier as the 4 banger? Why? Top speed was higher on the Supra, but BFD, especially with the US 55 speed limit and much reduced MPG.
Maybe you had to drive one, but on paper they didn’t look like much.
Ken Ramonet’s comment above summarizes the appeal pretty vividly, which I think also sums up the car’s popularity in Japan. It was about slickness and luxury and little gimmicks (of which the four-cylinder Celica already had quite a lot), with sportiness a low priority except in the Monte Carlo sense.