My Supra is a 1994 twin-turbo 6-speed, and lives in Christchurch, New Zealand. Here we have quite a few imported Supras, almost all of which are Japanese spec. The interesting thing about my one is that it's a UK-spec supra. It was bought into New Zealand by Toyota and sold to it's first owner here with 2,000 miles on the clock. Supras in this trim sold for NZ $165,000 (about US$80,000) back then, and I guess the original owner paid close to this amount for it.

Anyway I am the third NZ owner, and the car had 24,000 miles when I bought it (about 40,000km). In New Zealand we have a problem with car importers winding back the odometers on used cars imported from Japan, so it was nice to get one with a service record in New Zealand starting at 5,000 miles in 1995.

UK-spec Supras are almost identical to the supras sold in the US, but with a scoop on the front hood used as a turbo intake to get a good supply of cold air. They have all the US-spec gadgets, like the little radiator in the side-vent behind the drivers door to cool the diff oil. The factory power output is meant to be 325hp (slightly higher than in the US because 96 octane fuel is available) as opposed to 276hp for the Japanese Supra.

The car was dynoed by its previous owner and is making just slightly over 300hp at the rear wheels. Assuming 15% drivetrain losses this puts the engine output at about 350hp (260kw).

This is only 25hp more than a stock UK supra is meant to be, so it's probably correct. I'm not sure where this extra little bit of extra power comes from; the intake mod might give a little bit more power, and the car is probably just a good example.

Anyway, since it is so similar to a US-spec Supra, the BPU (Basic Performance Upgrade) would probably work the same (where you do exhaust and boost control). I won't be doing these mods just yet, but hopefully in about 6 months time. Judging from the US mkiv site this should yield about 400 rear-wheel hp instead of the current 300. Lindsay is interested to see what his FMIC upgrade would do to an export-spec Supra since he is getting 423rwhp out of a Japanese-spec one. (But it seems to me that his car is practically export spec now anyway with all the mods he has made.)

Anyway, at the moment I am enjoying keeping the car in stock form.

I believe it is a stock-standard engine and exhaust except for K&N air, putting out 350hp. The traction control is mechanical rather than electronic like on Japanese Supras, and seems to allow some wheelspin before kicking it. The manual says that traction control can apply braking individually to each of the rear wheels, as well as controlling the throttle.

The speedo is in miles per hour (goes up to 180) with km per hour on the inside (up to 300) as you can see in the following photo. I believe it is speed-limited to 250km/h although I haven't been fast enough to find out.

Inside it's all leather, still in pretty good condition even through the car is six or seven years old.

Being UK-spec it has the active spoiler at the front; this comes down at about 50mph to provide more downforce on the front wheels. You can see it in the following two photos with the spoiler down and up.

You can see the controls for the spoiler in the following photo:

Now finally I have a car that's faster than the family station wagon :-)