No Manual Transmission Option for 2021 Toyota Supra
The long-awaited return of the legendary Supra model, which found reflection in the 2020 model, left a mixed impression in the automotive world. On the one hand, this model made a good impression on convenience-seekers with its excellent handling and good fuel economy, but on the other hand, it lacked a crucial component valued by Supra loyalists, namely a manual transmission. Despite the fact that current trends on the automotive market and low take rates of manual models make Toyota’s decision to use the automatic transmission in 2020 Supra absolutely reasonable, fans of the classic Supra with a stick still hope for a miracle. But it seems like cries for a manual option won’t come true, at least not with the 2021 model.
Learn more details on 2021 Toyota Supra Versions
Recently, it became known that Supra’s leading engineer Tetsuya Tada performed several test drives behind the wheel of a manual Supra, but eventually he decided to stick to automatics for a couple of reasons.
First of all, the Toyota official is completely satisfied with the 8-speed unit employed in the 2020 model. This transmission has great performance capacity and can handle a lot of torque. Toyota is aware of numerous cases when automotive tuners tried to push 2020 Supra’s performance rate even higher with numerous updates, creating additional load on the automatic transmission. Eventually, these experiments frequently led to transmission blow-up, and now Toyota considers possible measures to prevent such situations. That is why the updates for 2021 include a power increase for the currently used six-cylinder engine and a new four-cylinder engine, and a new A91 special edition. Thus there will be 3 automatic 2021 Supra versions. But one of the key arguments against the manual option in the upcoming Supra is to better differentiate it from the 86 model, which is also supervised by Mr. Tada. Mr. Tada noted that the next 86 version will have a manual option.
2020 Supra equipped with a manual transmission
from European Auto Group
At the same time, Mr. Tada said that he knows how badly Supra fans miss a manual version if this sports car. He didn’t exclude the possibility of the manual Supra in the future, but first he wants to give some time to the automatic Supra to be fully appreciated by the automotive world. But if some Supra enthusiasts don’t want to wait for a new factory-made Supra that may never come true, they can use transmission swap services offered by different tuning companies such as European Auto Group.
