2020 TOYOTA SUPRA LAUNCH EDITION FIRST TEST: SHOWTIME

Just about every Wednesday, a fresh crop of eager cars and SUVs pull into the parking lot at California Speedway and line up along the curb for testing—a batch of new contestants for our private little weekly episode of America's Got Automotive Talent. It's 7:30 a.m., and on cue, they roll past the security guard and into a nice, neat row to introduce themselves. Already, they're starting to nervously eye one another.

Towering over them all is the enormous new Kia Telluride, which appears to have the mass of 14 Fortes. Theoretically, it's the first SUV with its own gravitational field. Its performance trick? Rather than racing around the figure eight's cones, it's going to orbit around it. Next to the Kia is the silver Mercedes-Benz GLE 450, which can pneumatically hop up and down. This is going to be a big, big crowd pleaser. Although it's officially for jumping out of Saharan sand pits, I'm telling you, Mercedeshas missed a bet by not putting a button for this on its remote key fob. Finding your GLE after a long night at the Hollywood Bowl would be a cinch.

And then there's—I look way, way down—what appears to be a Star Wars Stormtrooper on wheels. It's white and covered with gleaming but menacing armor. But beneath the helmet and combat gear, it looks, hmmm, strangely familiar.

"Didn't I know your father?" I ask. It stares straight ahead, mission-focused. "I doubt it," it replies curtly, its accent showing hints of both Japanese and German. "He's been gone for almost 20 years.""No. It's all me. Sorry." I walk around it and quip, "Darth Vader anywhere nearby?" Its headlights twist into a dirty look.

Actually, I rather like how its greenhouse dramatically pinches at the stern. It creates a sort of single-seater, monoposto effect. I try to make friendly again. "You know, I've tested every branch of your family tree since it first sprouted with the Celica Supra."

How old are you?" its headlights widen. Touché. Frankly, the last Supra is the one that really made this car's reputation. But it ultimately got to be too expensive, and people started wincing and whispering, "For $39,900 (at the time) I could get a BMW."  Which too many of them did. I hesitantly tap my chin, then, and ask, "Ah, what do you cost?" "$56,180, base" it crisply replies." Not bad. "And I'm part German, too," the Supra coughs under its breath.

Then it impatiently sighs, "Look, this ain't no Concours d'Elegance, right?" It knows perfectly well that its pace today down the dragstrip and around the figure-eight handling course will be what punches its ticket into any future exotic comparison tests—maybe Randy Pobst race cam laps, and who knows, perhaps even car video stardom. Flub these, and its crickets in the parking lot next to our long-term Chrysler Pacifica minivan. I motion it over to the scales for the weighing in.

It inches up the ramps and lightly settles on the weighing pads: 3,363 pounds. Weight distribution: 52 percent front, 48 percent rear. Nose heavy, but only slightly. Dimensionally, this is a 9/10-scale version of the last Supra, 5.2 inches shorter and 142 pounds lighter (despite all of today's added safety gear). Everything else that matters, though, is a solid 11/10ths; road test editor Chris Walton is busily jotting down tech specs. Horsepower? 335 from its 3.0 turbocharged liters of inline-six, compared to the fourth generation's 320 hp from 1 cc less (and it has a whopping 50 more lb-ft of torque than the fourth-gen at 2,400 fewer rpm). A bigger advance is its transmission, now a slick, quick, paddle-shifted eight-speed automatic with twice as many cogs as its slow, old four-speed autobox. And trust me, gearbox Neanderthals, you really do want these index-finger trigger shifts over those long, ropy shift throws and Texas left-foot stomps of the old manual stick shift. But frankly, the biggest advance is probably one you won't think of—its modern footwear. These Michelin Pilot Super Sports, staggered at 255/35R-19s up front, 275/35-19 rear, are gummy squash-court shoes compared to Dutch wooden clompers that were 1997's 235/45-17 and 255/45-17-sized Michelin Pilot SXs.

Check-in done, Chris straps the Vbox onto the passenger seat and idles it over to the dragstrip.

Maybe you noticed the "GR" and "Launch Edition" that bracket this new Supra's name. Those first two letters stand for Gazoo Racing, Toyota's performance face for winning Le Mans, World Rally Championships, and, now, developing the Supra's dynamics around the Nürburgring. In fact, it was Akio Toyoda's Nürburgring drive in the old Supra that convinced him to summon a successor.

The Launch Edition part refers to this car's red mirrors, brake calipers, and interior accents, but it's the Supra's launch control software that Walton cares about now. Inside, per his in-cockpit notes: "Press Sport button, then press TC button to display SPORT TRACTION. Hold both pedals down, see icon of checkered flag, the revs settle at 2,000 rpm" The Supra squats like a muscled cat, tensed and ready to bolt. "Then release the brakes. It manages its wheelspin pretty well with both throttle and short shifting. After a few consistent back-to-back runs, I then tried my organic launch control (i.e., Walton Control) and tied launch control to a 1/100th of a second (did it twice). That must be all the grip those tires have." Best time? Zero to 60 in 3.9 seconds and the quarter in 12.5 at 111.2 mph.

That slots it in the top 19 percent of the 500 non-SUVs and trucks we tested in the past five years. And it shares that time with such delectables as 2017's Porsche 911 Carrera, Alfa Romeo GiuliaQuadrifoglio, and Corvette Grand Sport. For perspective, the new Supra reaches 70 mph in the same 5.1 seconds its predecessor took to reach 60.

A sports car is about stopping, too. More from Walton: "Squirmy, light tail from 100 mph, some mild ABS pulses, and a firmer, shorter-travel brakes pedal than the prototypes I'd originally driven in Spain. And instead of fading, these brakes seem to like some heat. Shortest stop from 60 mph was the seventh out of eight. In order: 103, 102, 103, 102, 101, 100, 99, 101 feet." That's rare.

Ninety-nine feet places it the top 12 percent of our 500 cars and in the same short-stopping neighborhood as the Ferrari 812 Superfast, Civic Type R, and Porsche 911 GT3.

When Chris returns from the dragstrip, I slide the red leather seat all the way back and high where I like it, adjust the mirrors out of habit, click myself in, and take stock of the cockpit. Compared to its predecessor's button-filled, fighter-jet wraparound dash, this one's pretty subdued. And between my raised seat, 6-foot-1 height, and the side windows' low tops, I feel like I'm wearing a sombrero pulled down low. For figure-eight testing, I prefer the windows lowered as much as possible to hear the tires, but already there's some wind booming despite both of them being down. I pick up the pace and start circulating around the cones, building up speed and observations:

I'm using third gear the whole time, as second was too short. Lifting off the throttle triggers some fun pop and crackle from the exhaust, then braking that's very predictable if accompanied by noticeable nose dive. Lifting off the brake pedal and dialing in steering triggers a quick and noticeable roll rate. It's not that the Supra flops over—just that its initial motion catches your attention. On turn-in, the car seriously yaws; gosh, is this a drift car or a sports car? The tail moves out and you've got to manage it with measured inputs of both throttle and hand motions. But it just never ever stops drifting. Yeah, you can "balance" it, but the rears must be taking a beating. At corner exit, squeezing the throttle walks the tail out even more, though it's an angle you've got to quickly dial out to avoid scrubbing speed. The foot goes all the way down, pressing some nice, low-end torque against your back while it revs toward its no-sweat 6,500-rpm redline.

Later, we compute its lateral grip to be 1.01 g, which slots it in the top 13 percent, along with friends like the Type R and 2017 Audi R8 V10 Plus; its 24.0-second, figure-eight time is a top 17 percent along with lap-time pals Aston Martin Vantage and Jaguar F-Type SVR.

After a few cool-down laps, Supra and I ease to a stop. The Telluride and GLE, which have been watching the whole time with an expression of pasted astonishment, begin to applaud. The Toyota slightly bows. The test numbers have recorded the heights of its athletic leaps on our Wednesday stage, but Chris and I have had the pleasure of dancing with a genuinely talented and fun partner