2020 Toyota Supra Outsells Toyota 86, Subaru BRZ Combined in First Full Month on Sale in US
As it turns out, internet comments aren’t the best measure of commercial success, because the new Supra is off to a solid start.
Official sales figures for the month of August—the Toyota Supra's first full month on sale in the United States—are out, and the new Supra is already on track to blow its predecessor's performance out of the water.
Across the U.S., Toyota sold 643 Supras in the month of August, for a year-to-date total of 963 cars. It's still a small fry compared to auto industry mainstays like the Camry, of which almost 32,000 were sold last month, but it's also north of Toyota's more affordable 86 and its Subaru twin by a significant margin. Together, Toyota and Subaru moved a combined 503 86s and BRZs, meaning the Supra is almost 35 percent ahead by sheer volume.
This sales volume likely won't be sustainable; sports cars always sell well early in their product cycles before tailing off as faster, flashier, more modern competitors arrive on the market, as happened with the 86. In June 2012, the first full month on sale for the Scion FR-S—as the Toyota 86 was then known—it sold 2,684 units, but as of mid-2017, the model's sales volume cruises along in the mid-to-low three-figure range. It doesn't take a genius to tell that the Supra will struggle to manage even this volume if it reaches the 86's current age of seven years due to several factors, the main one being price.
But for Toyota, 643 Supra sales in a single month is worth popping some champagne, given its predecessor's poor performance in the U.S. Even in its best year of 1994, Toyota sold just 3,488 fourth-generation Supras, and the model shambled on to just 11,239 total U.S. sales. We're waiting on month-by-month historic figures from Toyota, but it's clear that the Supra is off to a better start than the last generation was. In the unlikely scenario that the Supra keeps its head of steam, it could surpass the last model's sales total as soon as Q1 2021. That could become more probable as soon as people hear what kind of horsepower tuners are getting out of their stock-engined Supras.