1991 Toyota Supra

Owned and very well looked-after by the vendor for 23 years, the car first came to these shores from Japan in 1998.

The odometer reads 148,000 kms, a number that really shouldn’t trouble these famously over-engineered cars with their bullet-proof engines.

This one is also really very solid in the body, and the vendor reports that there are no welded sections or replaced panels.

Given that these cars lent themselves to all manner of modifications and tweaks, this one is remarkably original, with the only real deviations from factory spec being an HKS induction kit (fitted during the previous owner’s tenure), a new manifold and a stainless-steel rear exhaust section.

We have driven the car and can report that it starts on the button, picks up pace with a degree of enthusiasm and urge that’s genuinely impressive even by today’s standards, and handles, steers, brakes and stops as you would hope and like.

This car is a Japanese import. This tells us two things.

Firstly, that it comes from a country where people tend to take pride in their cars and usually spend a great deal of time and effort cossetting them and making sure no harm comes to them.

Secondly, that it comes from a country where salt is thrown over the shoulders of sumo wrestlers, not chucked all over the roads in industrial quantities like it is in the UK.

OK, it’s been here since 1998, but the general condition of the bodywork is enough for us to believe that the job of keeping it in good condition and out of harm’s way has been done diligently and well in the intervening years.

The car presents pretty well from every angle and is reassuringly free of any significant dents or dinks that we can see.

The only deviation from this is a very small raised pimple on the nearside of the bonnet.

The shut-lines and panel gaps are crisp and consistent, and the doors close with plenty of accuracy and certainty.

The black paint has held up reasonably well in general but there is the standard spattering of paint chips, light scratches and scuffs in the usual places.

There are a couple of spots of nascent blistering between the windscreen and the Targa roof, and a few more in the n/s/r wheel arch.

The wheels are in decent order and the matching tyres look to have a good amount of life left in them.

The plastic sections on the ‘B’ pillars and behind the wiper arm mounts have faded.

The offside rear light cluster is cracked and crazed, the after-market wind deflector at the top of the rear screen is also cracked in places, and there’s a sizeable scuff on the nearside corner of the front bumper.

The interior is very much of its era and has survived the passage of time with varying degree of success.

The rear seats, as you might expect to find in a sporty coupé, look as if they’ve not spent much time supporting the weight of anything much more than a bag of shopping.

The front passenger seat has the odd scuff here and there but is otherwise good.

The driver’s seat has fared less well and is patched up in several places with duct tape – which, in case you didn’t know, is the most useful thing ever invented by humans and has been used to repair everything from ironing board covers to the Space Shuttle.

The padded cover to the centre arm-rest has also seen better days and is holed in several places.

The headlining and door cards look fine to us, as do the carpets and mats.

The handbrake gaiter is a little loose and ragged at the base, and the leather on the steering wheel is rather worn in places.

The vendor tells us that most things work, including the digital dashboard display – which is a fine endorsement of Japanese electronic excellence back in the day.

The exceptions are the interior lighting, the air-con (needs re-gassing), and a rather temperamental heater switch.

The boot is in good order and contains a mahoosive sub-woofer as part of a potent sound system installed by the vendor.

The engine bay looks fine to us, and everything appears to be clean, dry and in its right and proper place.

The car has had new discs and pads on the front, and the vendor has recently completed the very fiddly job of replacing the rectifier on the alternator.

He has also had the rocker head gaskets replaced with genuine OEM parts.

The undersides seem to be particularly well preserved, have been thoroughly undersealed, and everything we can see appears to have a reassuring amount of structural integrity.

The car comes with its original Japanese service book and, if our command of the language was better, we’d happily tell you what it says.

Luckily, it also comes with all manner of bills, receipts and invoices covering more recent work carried out and attesting to the fact that it has always been kept in very good mechanical order.

It has an MoT – with no advisories – that’s valid until 13th March 2025.

The car comes with a recent, clear HPI report, full sets of keys and various guides and manuals (mostly in Japanese).

We know we’ve never seen one of these before, and a fairly lengthy trawl through worldwide car auction activity didn’t reveal anyone else who’s bought or sold a Supra twin-turbo 2.5 ‘Limited’ in the last decade or so.

Aficionados hanker after these cars not just because they’re vanishingly rare, but also because they’re landmark vehicles in the automotive hall of fame; cars that helped establish Toyota and their Japanese competitors as manufacturers of cars that could take the fight to their European counterparts – and win.

Yes, there are one or two minor cosmetic jobs to contend with inside and out, but the car drives superbly, has evidently been much-loved and well cared-for, and is sure to get people ‘who know’ staring and pointing wherever it goes.

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