Last month Toyota revealed that it was hard at work bringing an A70 Supra 2.5GT Twin Turbo back to its former glory. The restoration is now complete, and Toyota has released a video showing how much work was involved. Like many project cars, tearing into it revealed unexpected challenges.
Turns out the car had prior damage that had been poorly repaired. The car was a 20-footer, with peeling paint hiding bondo and a hack patch job to cover up rust holes in the trunk floor. The rest of the Supra was pretty tired as well and needed a complete refurbishing to be show car worthy.
The work was done at the GR Garage in Toyama Shinjo, one of a few select Gazoo Racing facilities in Japan capable of carrying out a down-to-bare-metal restoration. There, technicians divided tasks into major sections — body, paint, suspension, and engine.
Everything that could be unbolted from the body was removed. New sheetmetal was cut to fill up the rust holes. The suspension was removed, every part cleaned and re-finished, and new bushings pressed in. Even the fuel tank was stripped to bare metal, uncovering a pinprick rust hole that needed to be filled.
In the end it all comes together satisfyingly with a mix of refurbished parts and brand new bits from the GR Heritage Parts program. They even managed to find a set of A70 wheels to replace the aftermarket BBS meshies that the car came with (though they appear to be regular silver-finish wheels and not the gunmetal ones that a black 2.5GT would’ve came with). The car was fired up for the first time post-resto on April 8.
The GR Garage is an enviable facility as well (how we long for a ceiling-mounted engine hoist!) and we’d gladly watch a tour of their tools and equipment. If anything, the video was too short. We could sit through a far longer and deeper dive into how each individual part was restored. Perhaps one of the background cars could be the subject. Amidst the GR86s we spotted an AW11, SW20, and even an R30 Nissan Skyline.
Amazing, a restoration on that level in the US would take years, not months.
Saw this the other day. I thought via JNC, but must have popped up somewhere else? The auto generated translation had a few hiccups and would stop altogether occasionally, but still a good watch. As you say, I could watch a much longer video…and more of them…etc.
Did not expect to see such bad rust holes in the spare tire well. (Not sure why, it’s an 80’s Toyota…)
To have these guys (and the ¥ to pay them) available to work on my st165 would be a dream.
… It would have been more of hard work if the A70 Supra were restored with non-Toyota / non-Japanese hardware, and as a result, even express the fact that Toyota (Supra’s manufacturer) retains its perception as (Toyota) being a (Japanese) car manufacturer that’s deeply known (mostly in Europe) for bland and less fun to drive / exciting cars in particular, so I think the styling of the A70 (Supra) per exterior has to do with DeLorean’s DMC-12 because both cars were made in the 1980s and also both are rear-wheel driven but with differences – FR for Supra and RR for DMC (hence the engine of the latter being placed in the rear in contrast to the Supra being on the front but with the wheels being powered on the rear).
Toyota have not only restored cars from the former itself to its fellow compatriots, but also foreign (especially European) ones, if only there were educational and such exchanges between Toyota, Honda and half of Europe’s car manufacturers (mostly non-German and non-Swedish brands like those from France and Italy) therefore it would have been an excitement to see cars from Renault Group (even after acquiring Nissan in 1999 as well as despite Dacia being unavailable in Japan) and Stellantis (formerly PSA Peugeot Citroen and Fiat SpA later Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) being restored / restomodded by Toyota a lot especially given the fact that Renault’s R5 (aka Renault 5) was also manufactured in a Toyota assembly plant in Durban, South Africa until circa 1970s or 1980s while meeting requirements for the South African market / demand… (The R5’s big and powerful 5 Turbo / R5 Turbo brother being restored by Toyota for example would be a fantastic thing as the rest, because simple, knowledge is power…)