Difficult to believe I hadn't written about this yet, but my brother just asked, and I thought "A-hah, blog post material": with what am I replacing my Z? Many weeks ago, I put down a grand on a GR Supra manual transmission pre-order. I'm numero uno on the list at that dealership. I've been crossing fingers ever since that I'll be able to actually land one within a reasonable time frame. The sales manager told me that if it gets to be twelve or eighteen months, we'll abandon ship and he'll give me my money back. However, he did vet things past his distributor before taking my money, and got a "Yeah, we can probably land you one of those"-type responses.
On that note, if I do get one I've no clue what color it'll be, or which of the two trims. My sales contact recommended keeping things wide open, since just getting one of these period is going to be a challenge.
A logical follow-up question is, why did I pick this over the new Z? I listened to tons of reviews of both cars on YouTube, and it boils down to me wanting something different this time. The consensus on the new Z is that it's not a serious performance car from the factory: it has worse weight distribution than my current car, the stock exhaust is pretty poor, the brakes fade really quickly, the stock tires are rubbish, and it has a pretty tepid engine note, which many reviewers compared with "a Toyota Corolla". The Supra, by contrast, is a sort of bonkers crazy car: pretty tail-happy, serious handling credentials to match its ballistic power, and nutty styling.
I've been doing the "Japanese pony car" or "Japanese Camaro" thing for thirteen years already. I want something with a different personality this time around.
On a totally unrelated note, I was bummed to hear that Rieko Kodama passed away sometime recently. Tons of my favorite Genesis games as a kid-- Sonic the Hedgehog and Phantasy Star II in particular-- had some variation of the name "Phoenix Rie" in their credits. The family hasn't stated the cause of death, but I wonder if she's a clot shot victim? I've never seen this many prime-age people dying in such numbers before, nor have coroners or insurance companies.