End of an Era

Sometime this spring, at a plant in Graz, Austria, the last fifth-generation Toyota GR Supra rolled off the line. No confetti made it to Draper, but I felt it anyway. If you've read my About page, you know the Supra isn't just inventory to me — it's one of my two favorite Toyotas ever built. So consider this both a eulogy and a thank-you note: to the car that brought the most famous name in Toyota performance back from the dead, and then spent six years proving it belonged.

This is the whole MkV story — where it came from, how it changed year by year, what the Final Edition actually gets you, and what might come next. Grab a coffee. This one's personal.

The comeback nobody believed

For seventeen years, the Supra was a legend without a sequel. The MkIV left America after 1998, and every couple of years the internet would resurrect the comeback rumor — and every couple of years, nothing. Then Akio Toyoda, the racing-obsessed boss who competes under the name Morizo, put a small team on the mission, and in January 2019 the fifth-generation GR Supra finally broke cover as the flagship of Toyota GAZOO Racing.

The controversial part lived under the skin: Toyota partnered with BMW, sharing a platform with the Z4 and adopting the now-famous B58 — a 3.0-liter turbocharged inline-six — with assembly handled in Graz, Austria. Purists howled. Then they drove it. Short wheelbase, wide track, beautiful balance, and an inline-six spinning the rear wheels: the recipe was the recipe, no matter who wrote down the ingredients. And Toyota's engineers spent years at the Nürburgring tuning it into their own thing.

Six years, one mission: prove the badge still meant something.

Six years of kaizen

Toyota calls it kaizen — continuous improvement — and the MkV lived it. Nearly every model year brought something real. The shorthand history:

What made the MkV special

On paper: a turbocharged straight-six, rear-wheel drive, adaptive dampers, an active rear differential, and — from 2023 on — three pedals if you wanted them. On the road: one of the most playful chassis in the class, eager to rotate and easy to trust. And in the aftermarket, the B58 became this generation's 2JZ — a bottomless well for tuners chasing big numbers, which did wonders for the Supra's street credibility all over again.

The Final Edition, decoded

For the sendoff, Toyota didn't just glue on a badge. The 2026 MkV Final Edition keeps the 382-hp turbocharged six — your choice of the 6-speed manual or the 8-speed automatic — and sharpens everything around it: larger front Brembo brake discs, refined differential control maps to trim understeer, recalibrated adaptive dampers, revised camber, extra body rigidity with added under-bracing, and aero work topped by a carbon-fiber ducktail spoiler and mirror caps. It rides on 19-inch matte-black wheels wrapped in Michelin Pilot Super Sports, and the cabin goes full occasion: Alcantara with red stitching, red seatbelts, and a GR-embroidered driver's seat. Just 1,300 will be built for North America — and every buyer gets a one-year NASA membership with a high-performance driving day included. The regular 3.0 and 3.0 Premium ride alongside it for one last year.

About the car in these photos: the red mirror caps, the side graphic, and that matte finish are the GT4 Style Package — a tribute to the Supra's GT4 race cars, with two package-exclusive matte colors, Burnout and Undercover. It's the loudest quiet car you'll ever see.

Carbon ducktail, matte paint, red details — the sendoff spec.

The GT4 Style Package pays tribute to the Supra's racing program.

So… is this really goodbye?

For the MkV, yes — the Graz line has gone quiet, and the BMW partnership ends with it. For the nameplate? Toyota hasn't confirmed a successor, but the reporting points toward Toyota developing the next chapter fully in-house. If history is any guide, the Supra doesn't die. It hibernates.

In the meantime, the math is simple: 1,300 Final Editions, an available manual gearbox, and a badge with four decades of gravity. History suggests the last of a Supra generation ages very, very well.

The last of the Graz-built Supras.

I'll keep the ending short, because if you've made it this far you already know what I'm going to say. The Supra is one of my two favorite Toyotas ever made — it's literally the first thing you see on my home page — and watching this generation take its bow has me equal parts grateful and greedy for whatever comes next.

And if you've been telling yourself "someday" about a Supra… the calendar just made that decision for you. You know where to find me.

Not goodbye. See you later.