Sales conceivably won’t support TNZ gearing up for this box – but distributor desire might still be strong.

CELEBRATED yet also likely to be largely cold-shouldered to point it might garner just a handful of annual sales – yet who’d bet on it not being a starter?

Potential pick up by buyers, based on analysis of how the numbers have rolled for a rival product of similar icon status, Ford’s Mustang, suggest Toyota New Zealand might at best sell the manual Supra as a special order, payment-up-front selection.

 However, putting that data aside - and ignoring, too, that Supra has been an extremely low volume car here, with fewer than 100 sold - there’ll be good chance the car will be supported, simply because of one other element: Toyota New Zealand’s boss.

 Neeraj Lala, is a huge Supra fanboy. He’s not only had the current car as personal transport but is enthusiastically involved in resto-modding a gen four (1993-2002) example. Which, from the looks of it, isn’t an automatic …

 His Palmerston North-based operation has yet to offer any thought about announcement from Japan late last week about the current generation two-seater performance coupe being provisioned with a manual transmission.

 The three-pedal option a to the eight-speed auto it has run since release here just over two years ago is a surprise twist intended to elevate the model’s GR (for Gazoo Racing) spirit.

 It also leaves it in the same purist format favoured for the GR-tuned Yaris and incoming Corolla. The new GR86 that has also yet to show, meantime, has a manual box but also provisions with automatic.

 Toyota is being coy about what it plans; so far, everything that is known is based on provision of two photographs – one of a three pedal set, the other of the rear of the Supra with a slightly different badge – plus a sparse release posted by the marque’s distributor in the United Kingdom and a Twitter note from Toyota US, both with the hashtag: Save the manual.

 If rumours out of Japan and the US are to be believed, the manual transmission will be mated solely to the car's full-strength 285kW/500Nm 3.0-litre turbocharged inline-six, which is the sole powertrain availed here in New Zealand-new form.

 The coupe’s under-skin twin, the BMW Z4 roadster, offered a six-speed manual with its base 2.0-litre four-cylinder.

 Toyota’s V6 also sources from Japan and the car itself, of course, comes from a Munich-supported production line in Austria.

 The full comment from Toyota UK reads: “Toyota Gazoo Racing sports car customers and fans have spoken and we’ve listened.

 “A Toyota GR Supra with an all-new, tailor-made manual transmission is coming soon.

 “Developed to meet the demands of driving purists, the Toyota GR Supra Manual Transmission has been engineered to offer enthusiasts something that is closer to the Gazoo Racing DNA and will enhance the driving experience.

 “This addition to the GR (Gazoo Racing) sports car line-up is unmistakably a Supra, its new red ‘Supra’ badge signalling the presence of manual transmission – a highly desirable, pure and special feature.

 “More information will be shared in the coming weeks.”

 Despite their celebrated status with sports car fans, manual transmissions have increasingly been shunned by actual buyers – the world’s best-selling small roadster, the Mazda MX-5, Germany’s Porsche 911 and America’s famous pony car, the Mustang, are all good case studies.

 All still avail in manual, but that provision attracts just a tiny count of actual sales.

 With NZ-sold Mustang, the car that is most alike Supra in layout, size and muscle image, the manual versus auto ratio runs at one in every 10 sales.

 It conceivably would be lower still were it not for limited count specials all still provisioning with a ‘stick shift’ option. As is, the standard production car now only offers manual as a box tick on the order form.

 Two years ago the most famous name among Mustang performance shops, Shelby, announcing it was quitting making manual models.