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Since the Supra’s launch in 2019, enthusiasts have begged Toyota to add a manual transmission option. While the eight-speed automatic works well, we (and much of the enthusiast public) believed it was missing that extra layer of feedback and enjoyment.
Our wish was granted for the 2023 model year, and enthusiasts responded. Toyota says that since the manual option went on sale, 47 percent of Supras sold in America have been delivered with three pedals. While that’s not Porsche GT3 levels of demand, it’s still an exciting ratio; proof that the manual transmission still has a place in today’s market, even outside of six- and seven-figure supercars.
A lot of that initial demand likely comes from purists who will accept nothing less than six speeds and an H-pattern knob in the center console, no matter how it improves the driving experience. But considering just how much better the manual Supra drives versus the auto, we suspect that ratio will hold true as time goes on. The gearbox has a satisfying notchiness not present in any new BMW I’ve driven. The shifter itself—the knob and the stem attaching it to the rod—is thinner and nicer to hold. The gates are perfectly spaced, and while the throws aren’t the shortest I’ve felt, they’re still satisfying. Best of all, the gearbox is well-matched to the 382-hp BMW B58 straight-six’s torque delivery.
Like the rest of the Supra, the stick shift is the result of a collaboration between Toyota, BMW, and the company’s parts suppliers. The gearbox, codenamed GS6L50TZ for you BMW nerds, isn’t sourced from any existing car—it's a new item developed specifically for use in the Japanese sports coupe. Keisuke Fukumoto, assistant chief engineer for the Supra, told Road & Track the casing comes from the current-generation 3-Series which, up until recently, offered a manual option in Europe. But the gears, he says, are from the M3. The final gear ratio in the differential has been raised from 3.15 to 3.46 to promote better acceleration.
Toyota says it spent a great deal of time dialing in the Supra’s shift feel to set it apart from anything BMW (or any other brand) is offering right now, going to great lengths to develop a unique sensation.
“We wanted to make this vehicle very driver-oriented, it was something that we really were particular about,” Supra chief engineer Fumihiko Hazama told Road & Track. “We looked at things carefully when it came to the feeling of [the shifter] and it was very much a joint development with BMW.”
The engineering team brought together four manual-equipped benchmark cars to set a target for how the Supra’s shifter should feel: a Toyota GT86, a BMW M140i, a BMW M2 Competition, and a BMW Z4 (the base four-cylinder Z4 is available with a stick in Europe). Upon deciding the Supra’s shifter feel target, the team soon realized it couldn’t simply pull from BMW’s existing parts bin to achieve its goals.
“You can imagine some of the components were coming from luxury vehicles,” technical manager for vehicle performance management Herwig Daenens told Road & Track. “We had to change them to provide that GR shift feeling. For instance, the Supra has a very driver-oriented cabin, a cockpit. So it means that there is less space; you can have less shift travel. So we had to adapt the shift [linkage] to make sure that everything fit in this driver-oriented cockpit.”
Toyota could’ve just stopped there and popped a BMW shifter knob into the Supra and called it a day. But it didn’t, instead pouring as much time and effort as possible into creating the perfect contact point for drivers.
“When it comes to the knob, we looked at the weight very carefully, and also the shifting direction,” Hazama said. “The knob shape is something that we looked at very closely as well. The millimeter differences mattered to us in deciding that, and we also got a lot of feedback from the European [Toyota team], the BMW people, and also within [Toyota].”
The manual Supra’s software, too, was a big focus for the team. Every three-pedal Supra gets Toyota’s i-MT, or Intelligent Manual Transmission feature, as standard. Switch it on, and the Supra will rev-match for you on downshifts. BMW has a rev-matching feature of its own, but engineers insist this is an in-house piece of software developed for the Supra, rather than something borrowed from the Germans.
“[The i-MT] is something that we spent quite some time on tuning to the level that we deemed was okay for sports cars,” Daenens said. ‘This was not just a carry over from BMW. This was something that did not exist for the performance that we wanted.”
“We really looked closely at the shift speed,” Hazama added. “So whether you're going slow or fast, you wanted to give it a good sort of a quick rhythmical feel to match the rotation of the engine. So we did a lot of tuning around that as well.”
These changes didn’t come easily. The bulk of the manual Supra’s development and testing happened during the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing Toyota’s engineering teams in Europe and Japan to find clever ways to communicate and share ideas with each other, as well as BMW and its suppliers. Eventually they decided on having two separate development teams, one for Europe, and another for Japan. Each team would do their own testing on identical parts, then come together online to discuss their findings, rather than meet face-to-face.
“This whole thing was very new to us,” chief test driver Hisashi Yabuki told Road & Track. “We've never developed it in that way. So I think that actually, there's some positives that came out of it as well and perhaps we can utilize this new way of working together more in the future. So I think we were able to gain something by overcoming that challenge.”
“It was very challenging and a new way of working,” Daenens added. “Even now that COVID is finished we still implement some of these processes in our current development style because it is more efficient, and of course we learned from it.”
Brian Silvestro is Hearst Autos' Lead Deputy Editor for rankings content. He spent over seven years as a staff writer for Road & Track Magazine, and still contributes regularly with car reviews, industry interviews, and more.
He also has a taste for high-mileage, rusted-out projects and amateur endurance racing.
