2001 Toyota Supra JZA80 – Today’s Tempter

By: Alex Affat, Unique Cars magazine

Date: 14.02.2020

Clean and affordable turbo MkIV Supras are getting increasingly hard to find

The MkIV Toyota Supra began production in 1993, and quickly became a legend amongst aftermarket modifiers for its propensity to accept increased boost and produce godly amounts of power.

Decades later, thanks to various appearances in film, video games and elsewhere throughout popular culture – today’s penultimate Supra has found itself as a true cult icon.

Thanks to years of being used (and often abused) as bargain-performance cars, the modern classic Supras are now rather difficult to find in clean condition: low-mileage original top-spec examples have shattered world records in various auction houses around the world over the past 12 months.

And on the secondhand market, top-spec twin-turbo manual variants are quickly approaching six-figures. Of course specification matters, and depending on gearbox and engine configuration can see $50,000 traded for a turbo automatic; and for the least desirable naturally-aspirated automatic – as low as $20,000.

This Moonshine Grey example is a late-production 2001 example (the 350^th to last example off the production line), and lived in its native land of Japan until 2014 when it was imported by a late-60s country gentleman.

Its elderly owner obviously found the notoriously sluggish naturally-aspirated inline-six to be a little lacking, and replaced the atmo 2JZ’s head with a Turbo 1JZ head, supported by Haltech Elite ECU, Garrett T3 3463 turbo, custom intercooler and new (2019) Nissan R35 GT-R ignition coils.

It was dyno tested last year, posting 220kW at the rear wheels, and still retains its original A340E automatic transmission.

The car has covered just 113,508kms in its life, which is low for this era of Japanese performance cars. The exterior and paint looks good and the interior looks great; with minimal fading to cloth seats and no notorious heat bubbles visible on the dash.

At a guess; we’d pin the car as imported with an auction grade of 3.5 to 4 (out of 5), but as with any Japanese import: you would be smart to seek out the import papers and Japanese de-registration papers from the seller, to consummate mileage and condition of the car as it left Japan.

Performance buffs may be turned away by its automatic gearbox, but you’re essentially getting a turbo automatic Supra for the price of a basement naturally-aspirated example. You can either return it to factory naturally-aspirated guise or complete the popular manual conversion; the choice is yours!

The car is based in Victoria and is listed for $26,000.

You can check out the full listing here!

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