The Supra started life in 1978 as an offshoot of the Celica — the Celica XX at home, the Celica Supra abroad — after Toyota's North American dealers asked for something to sell against the Datsun 280Z. The name is the Latin prefix for "above" or "beyond". The fourth generation, the A80, went out of production in August 2002, stopped in Japan by restrictive emission standards, and for seventeen years there was no Supra at all.
The one that came back was a joint project. Toyota and BMW developed a shared platform that also carries the G29 BMW Z4, and Magna Steyr builds both cars side by side in Graz, Austria. BMW had first suggested using one of its existing platforms; the chief engineer, Tetsuya Tada, turned that down, and the car was engineered for an even 50:50 weight distribution. The styling took its cue from the FT-1 concept of January 2014, though the production car came out smaller. Toyota still calls it the A90, a marketing code chosen to follow on from the A40 to A80; underneath, BMW-style, it is the J29, chassis code DB.
A pre-production car ran at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July 2018, and Akio Toyoda revealed the production Supra at the Detroit motor show in January 2019. The first one built sold at Barrett-Jackson that month for US$2.1 million, the whole sum going to the American Heart Association and the Bob Woodruff Foundation. Sales in Japan began on 17 May 2019 in three grades: the SZ and SZ-R with BMW's 2.0-litre turbocharged four, and the RZ with the 3.0-litre turbocharged straight-six. There was no manual gearbox until a six-speed was added in 2022, for the six-cylinder only.
Prominence Red is Toyota Japan's name for the car's red, paint code D05, and the only solid colour offered on it. Production ended in March 2026 after a seven-year run, with no successor planned.
Aoshima's 楽プラ (Rakuraku Pura) Snap Kit No. 13-PR is the 2019 car at 1:32, released in April 2025 and made under Toyota's supervision. It is a 25-part kit: the body is moulded in Prominence Red so it needs no paint, the parts push-fit so it needs no glue, and the black sections of the front and rear bumpers are separate pieces to make assembly easier. Aoshima had sold a GR Supra in the same red in its earlier Snap Kit line from December 2020; that kit is now discontinued.