Yeah, I know it's been a long time since I used some '80s heavy metal reference as a title for a feature car, but in the past two or so weeks, while I stared in awe at the images of John Leigh's '95 Toyota Supra, destruction was the one thing that found its way into my thoughts. I began to think back to the West Leg kickoff of our 2004 Tour in Dallas. That's when I first noticed this magnificent red specimen. Not knowing that this car was once a non-turbo version of Toyota's now discontinued supercar, I continued to drool over it, along with the rest of the Tour goers.
It would take a very keen eye to even realize that John's Supra started life as a sluggish naturally aspirated hunk of metal. To most, the 2JZ-GTE engine appears as if it were the first and only powerplant that this JZA80 has ever had. But it isn't. Just to get the car running like a Supra should, John had SGP Racing swap out the engine, transmission, harness, ECU, and rearend for the twin-turbo counter parts, which seems like a lot of work considering that the next step was to yank out the engine again and outfit it with an SGP full-race short-block that consists of oversized low-compression pistons and forged connecting rods. The top end was reworked with a port job and fatty valves as well. But the truth is in the boost, like I always say. OK, I never said that before, but that's not really the point. What it all boils down to is the combination of an ITS GT74 dual ball-bearing turbo, a 100hp shot of Nitrous Express laughing gas, and lots of boost. Well, the giant 1,200cc injectors and dyno time tuning the AEM EMS had a lot to do with the end result of 1,032 hp as well. No, that's not a typo. John's Supra pushes more than 1,000 hp at the wheels, and it's fully street-driven. He even has the mileage from the 2004 Tour to prove it. Not that I saw much of his car while he was opening it up to top speed along what seemed to be a never-ending stretch of highway all the way to Atlanta. It didn't help that I was in a crappy rental Jeep with an Amish driver either.
In the brief moments that I happened to catch a glimpse of the Supra on the highway, it was damn near hypnotic. The Tein Type Flex coilovers managed to keep John's Supra rolling at a steady pace without showing signs of any imperfections on the asphalt. I'm not a big fan of red cars, but there's something about how the custom Renaissance Red paint blended so perfectly with the Do-Luck body kit. The 19-inch iForged Flex wheels looked like nothing more than a massive polished silver blur as the Supra propelled through the dirty south. Every once in a while I'd catch a little smidgen of red behind the front wheels, the Brembos that I'm sure get abused on an hourly basis trying to stop a 1,000hp car that tips the scale near 4,000 pounds.
I wasn't fortunate enough to ride in the Supra like our Nads in chief, but like I do at all upscale restaurants and clubs, I watched eagerly through the window. And I saw nothing but the best. At first glance, the 10,000-rpm TRD tachometer can be noticed tucked away in the factory gauge cluster. It's complemented with a batch of gauges from Auto Meter. From the Bride racing seats to the Eclipse DVD monitor, no corners were cut to make the interior any less spectacular than the rest of the car.