Remember when we thought Toyota was going to show a production version of the new Supra at the Geneva auto show this past spring, and then it turned out to be a concept for a race car?
Theyâre back to tease us again, and itâs still not with the production car. Thatâs right â itâs another race car. This one, though, is more than a concept.
This stock car version of the 2020 Supra (that launch year detail about the production car was confirmed at this reveal) is set to compete in the NASCAR Xfinity Series starting at the first race of the 2019 season at Daytona International Raceway next February.
There are a lot of things that are fascinating about the decision to place Supra in a NASCAR national series.
The first is that wedging a car with unique and dramatic design elements into NASCARâs highly controlled Xfinity template is no easy task.
To help, Toyota Racing Development recruited its design partner, Calty Design Research of Newport Beach, California. Supra joins a long list of styling projects that Calty has worked on with Toyota that includes the last three versions of the Camry from the Monster Energy Cup Series, the Tundra from the Camping World Truck Series, and the FT-1 concept on which the new Supra is based.
âA big part of the challenge on this car was that, honestly, we couldnât really change a lot (from the previous Camry Xfinity car),â says Kevin Hunter, President of Calty Design Research. âThe front face of the production car is very sculptural, very three-dimensional. We had to figure out how to get that impression into this car.â
The Xfinity template is more restrictive than the Cup template to help keep development costs down for the second-tier series, which leaves the design team with only a scant few areas that are legal to modify: the hood, upper half of the nose, front fenders, quarter windows, and the rear of the tailgate. Everything else must stay in strict compliance.
That said, this still leaves more room than one would think for aerodynamic improvement, from subtle shifts in the body work to more extensive development in the undertray.
âItâs a box, itâs not a singular data point,â says David Wilson, Toyota Racing Developmentâs President and General Manager. âCompetitively, thereâs a corner of that box that is the most optimum corner to be in, where you have the least amount of drag, you have the most amount of downforce. As we evolve our cars, we try and work closer and closer to that optimum.â
The most dramatic section of body work on the new Supra is the air scoop structure around the headlights. Toyota and Calty managed to integrate this into the final design â though the scoops are sealed off and not functional on the Xfinity car â while creating a minimum of aero disturbance.
âLooking at this area in this transition in this corner,â says Andy Graves, Group Vice President and Technical Director for TRD, âit would be really important for us to make sure that weâre keeping the air attached at that point. Otherwise, you can have some pretty serious problems, especially as it pertains to the air reattaching to the deck lid downstream and keeping rear downforce on the car.â
Graves and his crew demonstrated their success by putting the car on display at the Aerodyn wind tunnel in Mooresville, South Carolina, and using a smoke wand to show how air passes directly over the scoops and around the side panels without dispersing.
Whether this will be a success in a race situation is a complete unknown until February. Research and development technologies have advanced at a stunning pace, but they still canât perfectly simulate the high traffic and air turbulence of an active race. At any rate, Toyota says so far, so good.
The second thing thatâs intriguing about putting a Supra in NASCAR is that it runs counter to the entire reason that Toyota entered the sport in the first place. If Toyota uses NASCAR to show off how American it is, why choose Supra? Itâs not being built in the United States â it will be assembled in Europe at Magna Steyrâs facility in Graz, Austria, as a joint initiative with the BMW Z4 â and there may never have been another nameplate more steeped in Japanese motoring lore.
âItâs a good time for it,â says Paul Doleshal, Senior Manager of Motorsports and Asset Management for Toyota Motor North America. âI think weâve grown to a level of acceptance within the sport that allows us to embrace the global nature of our business â all OEMs are global businesses â so, to be able to explore some of the product and not be shy of our global presence.â
âWeâre still relevant in that Americanization piece with Camry and Tundra and where theyâre produced (Kentucky and Texas, respectively), and that is still is a major part of our conversation. But we shouldnât be ashamed or shy of anything we build. We build some of the best cars in the world, and weâre proud of it. We shouldnât be ashamed to put them on a racetrack and let them compete against everybody else.
âWeâll see the acceptance numbers, see how it goes when it gets on track at Daytona, and weâll go from there.â
With this launch and the concept from Geneva, thatâs now two Supra-related products that have been dangled before enthusiasts like proverbial carrots. And Toyotaâs not done yet: a third racing iteration, completely separate from the sports car racing or NASCAR realms, is to be announced before the production carâs ultimate reveal.
âWeâre working on some initiatives to bring Supra back to the consciousness of the world,â Wilson says. âItâs going to be really, really cool. NASCAR is not the be all, end all. Itâs just part of the strategy for Supra.â
In this interview they said Calty styled the production car.Aside from the initial concept, it sounds like Toyota USA had no part in the development of the production car.
Rallye Supra!âThe most dramatic section of body work on the new Supra is the air scoop structure around the headlights. Toyota and Calty managed to integrate this into the final design â though the scoops are sealed off and not functional on the Xfinity car â while creating a minimum of aero disturbance.â
Hmmm maybe hinting that the production car will in fact have functional vents?
âAnd Toyotaâs not done yet: a third racing iteration, completely separate from the sports car racing or NASCAR realms, is to be announced before the production carâs ultimate reveal.â
What other type of racing could it be?
The NASCAR Toyota Supraâs Big Nose Actually Makes it Faster
Last month it was announced the Toyota Supra would join the NASCAR Xfinity series for the 2019 season. The radical-looking Supra NASCAR body looks very different from the Camaro and Mustang XFinity Series bodies. You can thank the California-based team at Toyotaâs Calty Design Research studio for that, which wanted the composite body to look as close to the production A90 Supra as possible. To do this, they incorporated the new Supraâs rather pronounced nose, but it wasnât as easy as just submitting the design to NASCAR, group vice president and technical director for Toyota Racing Development, Andy Graves told us in an interview.
âRight at the start Calty did that design (with the nose),â Graves said. âActually, the very first version with that center âsnorkelâ on the hood, it actually stuck out from the front bumper like 2 and a half inches. Very, very pronounced. It actually looked much cooler than even what we have right now.â
But the original design protruded a bit too much, so the team went back to the drawing board and came up with a less exaggerated version. Toyota then ran the design past NASCAR to ensure they hadnât broken any rules. After all, no one had tried to implement such a design on a NASCAR body before.
âFirst we had to go to NASCAR because the lower half of the nose is a common piece amongst all three manufacturers, so from the split line, the lower half, thatâs a mandatory part,â Graves explained. âNo one has ever produced anything for the top surface of the nose that stuck out past the bottom half. So we had to make sure, even though it wasnât in the rule book, that NASCAR wasnât going to come back when we tried to get it submitted and rule that out, but they were fine.â
Then Graves and his team turned their attention toward the aerodynamic advantage, or disadvantage, the nose provided. It turned out the âsnorkelâ, as Toyota refers to it, actually improved airflow at the front of the vehicle in some way â although Graves didnât elaborate on exactly how this works.
âItâs definitely helped us on the aero side, it ended up being a great design feature that we worked out,â Graves said. âWe were very fortunate that ended up being a (positive) styling effect, on the Supra. When we first looked at it (the Supraâs nose) we said âweâre not sure thatâs going to workâ but it ended up being a positive for us.â
Youâre probably wondering the same we did when we looked at the NASCAR Supraâs protruding nose: âhowâs that going to work in the bump draft, though?â The smart minds at TRD thought of this (of course) and ran the design past their star drivers to ensure this wouldnât be a problem.
âWe talked to Kyle (Busch), talked to Erik Jones and talked to Christopher Bell to make sure that the nose protruding like that was not going to mess them up in any way as far as bump drafting goes,â Graves said. âThey were all perfectly fine, they said as long as you make it strong enough that we donât smash in that piece then weâll be more than happy with it. Weâve run some simulations, and actually, if you get far enough over to the side, by the time you get out that far, youâre not going to hook him or anything. So thatâs not an issue.â
The Toyota Supraâs appearance in NASCARâs second tier Xfinity Series will happen around the same time the road car debuts in early 2019. The Supra is a bit of an odd choice for NASCAR, if you ask us, but the automaker is insistent on taking the sports car racing everywhere â ovals included. You can thank chief engineer Tetsuya Tada for helping to employ that mindset. Tada would also like to see the car race at Le Mans one day, but the automaker hasnât committed to anything official yet with the FIA.
Weâre excited for the road-going Supra to debut and all, but weâre really excited to watch NASCARâs XFinity Series drivers bop each other in the rear with the Supraâs big nose (or snorkel, whichever you prefer) at superspeedways like Talladega and Daytona.