Japan?s signature auto show, the Tokyo auto show, was a must-see extravaganza of the country?s future sports-car ideas and eccentric concept cars throughout the 1990s. Then, as the Shanghai and Beijing auto shows grew in prominence and Korean cars started eating into Japan’s global market share, the Tokyo event lost its luster, dropping to second-tier status on the international calendar of car shows. And there it has stayed for the past decade. (It doesn’t help that the show is held only every other year.) But that won’t be the case in 2017, in large part because of one debut: the Toyota Supra concept.
The Supra concept leads a show-car trio from Toyota that also will include, according to the Japanese magazine Best Car, Toyota?s S-FR and Corolla GTI concepts. We first saw the next-generation Supra?s design direction when the company unveiled its FT-1 concept in January 2014, and the final product will take strong styling hints from that car, as the rendering published here shows. The final design is a collaboration between Toyota?s headquarters in Toyota City and the company?s Calty studio, located in California. Co-developed with BMW and using the same rear-wheel-drive platform as the upcoming Z5, we can expect to see the Supra powered by Toyota?s own turbocharged, 255-hp 2.0-liter inline-four and a flagship 340-hp 3.0-liter turbocharged V-6 married to an eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission. A 2.5-liter hybrid is expected to join the...