“There’s no replacement for displacement,” the saying goes. But we all know that isn’t true; there are lots of ways to make a car go faster that don’t involve increasing the engine size. Forcing more air into an engine is a time-honored approach that both of today’s competitors use. They just pressurize the incoming air in different ways.
Yesterday was a weird one, I know, but I wanted to write about both of those vehicles, and neither of them fit with anything else. That’s the way it goes sometimes. More of you wanted to play with an old fire truck than finish someone else’s project, and the big red Chevy took a pretty decisive win over the half-ute-converted Beetle. I loved some of the suggestions for what to do with the fire truck too, especially the idea of converting it into a giant BBQ smoker. Once it fought fires; now it encapsulates them and uses them for good. It’s perfect.
But I think that if I were choosing one for myself, I’d take the Beetle ute. I’ve always been curious about the Smyth kits, and this one has the hard part (the cutting) already done, and the leftover metal pieces already disposed of. Putting it together might be kind of fun.
You all understand the difference between turbochargers and superchargers, right? Just in case, I’ll go over it really quickly: A turbocharger uses the engine’s exhaust gas pressure to spin a turbine. The other end of that turbine pulls fresh air into the intake side of the engine. A supercharger, on the other hand, is a mechanical air pump that does the same thing, but is driven by a belt running from the engine’s crankshaft. In both cases, the engine is force-feeding itself more air, which creates more power. One of today’s cars came from the factory with a turbocharger, which has been replaced by an even bigger turbocharger, and the other came with a supercharger, and has had its head gaskets replaced. Let’s check them out.
1988 Toyota Supra Turbo – $6,100
Engine/drivetrain: Turbocharged 3.0-liter DOHC inline 6, five-speed manual, RWD
Location: Westland, MI
Odometer reading: 134,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well, needs a few things
The Toyota Supra started out as not much more than a Celica with a six-cylinder engine and a nose job, but by the time this third generation came around, it had evolved into a full-fledged grand touring coupe, with a roomy interior and elegant styling. The inline six remained, but now it was offered with an optional turbocharger. For many second and third owners, even the turbocharged engine wasn’t enough, and they turned to the aftermarket to create some truly audacious power numbers – but in the process lost the elegance and good manners. This appears to be such a car.
The Supra Turbo’s engine – 7M-GTE in Toyota-speak – is a 3.0 liter twin-cam unit making 231 horsepower in stock form. That was a serious number in the late ’80s, but of course it’s minivan horsepower now. This car’s engine has gone a bit beyond that. There’s a laundry list of high-performance parts in the ad, along with a claim of 500 horsepower. Take that number with a grain of salt, of course, but suffice it to say this isn’t a slow car. It does have a power steering leak that needs addressing, and it sounds like it could use higher-flow fuel injectors to really take advantage of the other go-fast parts, but the seller says it drives well as it is.
The Supra was a really nice car inside when it was new; I had a neighbor who owned one, and I got to ride in it a couple of times. This Supra is nothing like that car, unfortunately. The comfy seats have been replaced with racing seats and harnesses, most of the trim is removed (but included, thankfully), and it has a bunch of add-on gauges and an absolute travesty of a steering wheel. If this is your scene, more power to you, I guess, but I would much rather see a stock Supra interior.
It’s in reasonable shape outside, but not great. The paint is pretty bad on the hood, it’s missing some trim, and there are a couple of small rust spots. It has aftermarket wheels, but those are unavoidable on a car like this. The original wheels would have looked better, but they probably went to the recycler long ago. It still has that perfectly-proportioned wedge shape, though. I’m not sure Toyota ever sold a better body design than this.
1991 Ford Thunderbird Super Coupe – $4,000
Engine/drivetrain: Supercharged 3.8-liter OHV V6, five-speed manual, RWD
Location: Jackson, MI
Odometer reading: 140,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
Ford’s Thunderbird more or less created the personal luxury coupe category. For years, it just kept getting bigger and fancier, never a high-performance car, but never really slow, either. Like so many other cars, it reached its nadir in the late 1970s and early ’80s, first as a giant baroque monster and then as the most forgettable version of Ford’s Fox platform. In 1983, Ford abandoned the opera windows and hidden headlights and brought the Thunderbird into the modern era with a sleek new body design, though still based on the Fox platform. Then in 1989, a whole new Thunderbird appeared, with classy styling and independent suspension all around, and an available supercharger.
Ford’s 3.8-liter Essex V6 already had a reputation for weak head gaskets, and unfortunately, the supercharger only made things worse. I have heard a lot of stories of head gasket failures, and warped heads, on Thunderbird Super Coupes. This one has recently had its heads resurfaced and its head gaskets replaced, along with a bunch of other work, and it’s now ready to roll. Super Coupes are also hard on their automatic transmissions, but you’ll have no such worries here: this one is a five-speed stick.
Like the Turbo Coupe before it, the Super Coupe has a much sportier character inside than your typical old-person-oriented Thunderbird. It has big bolsters on the seats to hold you in place around corners, and a blessed lack of fake woodgrain. This one is in pretty good shape, but it looks like the radio is missing, judging by the wires hanging out of the dash. Also, I should point out that the first few years of this era Thunderbird came with motorized seat belts. Sorry.
The photos in this ad aren’t great, but from what I can see, this looks like a really original Super Coupe, with all its ground effects and original wheels intact. It has a few flaws, but nothing out of the ordinary for a well-kept 140,000 mile car. The seller helpfully includes a couple of under-car photos, and it looks really clean under there. No rust worries here.
Two-door coupes are getting hard to find these days, unless you want a Mustang, but when these two were built they were very much in demand. Both of these cars were available in lesser variants, but these are the ones everyone wanted back then. Now, thanks to time and depreciation, they’re way more within reach. Which one is more your style?
One look under the hood of that Supra and my initial thought was confirmed a thousand times over. I don’t have enough patience to keep an ebay/amazon/temu project Supra running. There will always be something on that Supra that is broken….always. I wouldn’t touch that car with a 10′ cattle prod.
Also, I’m a big Thunderbird fan so this was already easy. SC with a stick? Yes please.
Side Note: My personal opinion that Thunderbird is one of the best car names ever.
Also Thunderbolt. I’m really hoping Ford is saving it for some eventual hybrid then electric drag sedan.
Unfortunately, either name will probably eventually end up on a mediocre SUV.
I was leaning Thunderbird as soon as I saw the headline and the write-up on that Supra confirmed it. What I am seeing is someone else’s project where the priorities began with throwing stuff at the wall until they could claim “It makes 500hp…I mean, I haven’t taken it to the dyno, but it smoked this Charger at a red light leaving McDonalds” and then ended with some Walmart clearance bin interior decorating. That price tag is a combination of the Supra name and someone trying to recoup money that was burned a loooooong time ago before the car itself catches fire because of leaking fluids or an electrical issue. Or both.
I’ve known the kind of person who owned that Thunderbird. That is (or was) a good ol’ boy who probably bought this thing new or gently used, remembers Bill Elliott hitting 212.809 in the #9 Coors T-Bird in ’87 at ‘Dega, and bought this because driving a Mustang was a little rough on his back (and he still needed to get the kids around). To me, this is an undeniably cool car and a great example of the moments when Ford did something a little batshit crazy that didn’t make the most sense, but in a good way! Add in the fact that the list of parts/work on this car are repairs and taking care of known weak points, the interior is original, and it avoids a secondary Achilles’ Heel by having the 5-speed. Oh, and that $2,000 still in your pocket is pretty sweet.
Thunderbird it is! I’d buy it, wash it, detail the interior, and then leave it the hell alone. It’d be absolutely sweet taking that to Radwood events.
I had a Thunderbird SC in high school and college and I can confirm it’s an amazing grand touring car. As an irresponsible teenage dipshit, the IRS made for very wheel-hoppy launches, but it was in its element on the highway with effortless passing.
BOTH
I have spoken.
That poor, poor Supra.
Have you heard? What’s the word? It’s Thunderbird!
I really wanted to pick the Supra, but that level of fucked-with on a comparatively obscure platform kills it for me. If it was a Targa top, it would’ve moved the needle enough to take on someone else’s work.
Plus, I like the styling of the Supercoupes.
This would be a really tough choice if the Supra hadn’t been ruined. But it has been ruined, so the fairly clean stock manual Super Coupe takes an easy win.
80’s era Toyota with decades of Michigan weather/salt that’s been tinkered with by someone doing Fast ‘n Furious Cosplay? Pass. I guess the Thunderbird by default but $4K might be better spent on a night of debauchery in Vegas. Or a low-fee index fund.
I’m going to Denny’s today, and taking a Superbird.
SuperChicken, all day long. This one is in the sweet spot of old car condition too…well maintained, clean, and original but not pristine and/or low miles to the point where you might be tempted to preserve it as a classic or something. Just go out and drive the thing – enjoy it.
…I like the MA70. It is a handsome car. But pillar pods and especially 4-point harnesses are a hard no. Don’t want to have to wear a HANS everywhere I drive the thing.
On the other hand, I almost bought a Super Coupe, with a stick. Seriously looked into them. I eventually got my Bug instead. I’ll take the car Nissan aped for the S14 today, and bring home an MN12.
EDIT:…the one slightly alarming bit, though: look at the rear alignment in the SC’s top shot. That’s a worrying amount of positive camber.
I mean, they’re IRS, so even if it is a bent arm or borked wheel bearing, it should be a simple enough fix.
Yeah, I’m looking at it again and it might also be a trick of the lens.
I did notice that; I think the photo is just a bit fish-eyed.
Yeah, I think that’s what happened. The poster shot that photo with their camera zoomed all the way out.
To note to anyone reading this particular comment: when you zoom out with a camera, you also widen the field of view: in essence, you’re squeezing more “stuff” in the same rectangle. This causes a distorted view, which when taken to an extreme can make things look dramatic, great for making a Rap Video with a couple of friends, but it did visually throw off the alignment in this case. Be careful how you photograph your car when selling it.
Fred Sanford: “Son, go in the kitchen and fix your Aunt Esther a fish-head sandwich.”
Aunt Esther: “Fred Sanford, you fish-eyed fool!”
I can’t imagine DT would be familiar w/ Sanford and Son, ha ha. Well, he might know of that Ford truck. I love that show! I grew up watching it w/ my Dad
Fred Sanford: “Ya big dummy!”
I think it’s a trick of the lense because the front wheel on the bottom photo also looks a little wonky.
Either way, it’s nothing that couldn’t be fixed. I’ve never bought a $4000 car without the expectation that something is borked and will need replacement 3 days after I get it home.
The Thunderbird is gonna run away with this, but after my love/lost experience with a Supercoupe, I just can’t deal with another one. When I bought mine, the most important thing I learned is that everything is complicated. There’s a ton of little bits of tech that can break and fixing things is not as easy as presented. It’s nice that this one took care of the head gasket issues, but there’s plenty of other things that will go wrong here. Still, it’s a safer bet than the Supra, which has been modified and probably run hard… and I absolutely loved the month I had with my perfect/documented 5-speed SC until a reckless driver on the interstate ended it, I just can’t go back there.
So voting Supra because I’m an emotionally fragile person.
I would always pick a Toyota…..until I saw this Toyota.
This.
I was ready to click supra until I saw how it had been butchered. I really want one but seriously not that one. I guess t-bird it is.
With the Supra, red flags abound. No air cleaner/filter in front of the turbo is issue #1…that in itself calls everything else into question. Those “Racing seats” are temu/amazon bottom barrel specials that are already de-upholstering. Basically nothing that’s been done to this car looks to have been done well. And the 7M-GTE isn’t exactly the most reliable engine either — nowhere close to the legendary 2JZ.
The Thunderbird looks decent enough for today. Those Mazda 5 speeds aren’t super strong either.
I used to have an 89 Super Coupe, and liked it. This is a darned good deal if not too rusty. The big questions for me are whether the seat frames have started to go (the holes for the rivets can apparently stretch, causing the seat frames to move and bend a bit), what head gaskets were used in the repair (when I owned mine, Fel-Pros were the favored choice), and how the transmission is holding up, specifically the synchros.
Then there is the suspension. The original adjustable Tokicos are unobtanium due to the fluid they used being as toxic as gargling liquefied asbestos, so I am not sure what options are out there these days. The originals were a little too soft in normal mode, and a little.too hard in sport mode, so hopefully there is a Goldilocks “just right” medium out there.
I am also.perplexed by the paint — I’ve never seen that colour combo. It almost looks like an anniversary edition, but the silver isn’t the same, and neither is the interior.
Still, I paid $3200CAD for mine in 2001 (IIRC), and it was a repaint in the anniversary colours (originally white), so I can’t say much. The price is decent. That one would look badass with the right rims (one SCCOA member had Terminator Cobra rims that looked AMAZING).
And, if it’s still stock, changing out the resonator is reputedly good for 15-20 hp.
I wonder if the price of gas is influencing the sale — these babies gulp down premium at a frightening rate.
Your talk reminds me of a co-worker’s rusted out Corolla. He was sitting on a hill, and when he went to let the clutch out and take off, the front seat mounts gave up entirely and just dumped him backwards into the back seat.
Thankfully, the car stalled when this happened.
Well, the rivet holes going wasn’t that dramatic. The seat just started to lean a bit to one side. I got the Ford dealer to “fix” it, but it was never 100 percent right after that, and longer trips got really uncomfortable.
I also forgot one key maintenance item: Ford specified replacing plugs as an engine-out job (!), but others figured out ways to do it. Still, with my larger hands and forearms, I would want to be sure I wouldn’t have to do them any time soon.
Didn’t the Contour have similar recommendation with its plugs? I recall Ford engineers later being impressed by the ingenuity of people who figured out how to use a crazy assembly of socket wrench extensions and joints to avoid that.
The SVTs were DOHC, so spark plugs were easily accessed.
The alternator on the other hand…that’s where the 4 feet of extensions came in handy. Mine never went, thank heavens.
And I needed wobble sockets to get to the starter.
The SC is a 35th anniversary edition car.
Not this one. The Annie’s were a 1990 model with black rims and a black and silver interior with leather.
Sure as heck looked like it. Oh well! I’d still take the slightly ratty T-Bird over the pre-molested Supra.
I can’t believe I’m choosing an Essex V6 today.
I’d rather have a less molested version, but given the choice of these two I’m still picking Supra. Hopefully my friend can help me redo anything questionable (which could be a lot), but the Ford just does nothing for me.
Respect, but it looks like a hell of a lot of redoing/undoing.
Yup, Supra for the win! It’s awesome. What a great body style
I’ll take the adult owned Tbird for $4,000, Alex.
I really wanted to vote Supra, but the cheaper and rust free (-ish?) Super Coupe got my vote in the end.
I would love to own that Supra stock. Boy Racer mods do not interest me.
If they were both bone stock, the Supra would own the contest. But it has been too fasted and furioused for my tastes, and I suspect that’s true for many readers.
Right on – the wheels alone (loud aftermarket vs stealthy factory) do it for me.
Really wanted to do a pithy reply, but not for non-member status. Subscribe my friend!
Out here with the Superliminal messaging, eh?
Yeah, I’m OK with that.
There may be danger to the manifold.
Supra.
No Regerts.
Hey, that’s my thing!
I was going to go the 80s wedge mobile supra but after seeing the interior and the turbo with no damn air filter on it I nope right out and went with the t bird it is cheaper and looks to have been cared for much better.
It’s ok, it’s got twin vent filters for the crankcase.
That Supra screams “I paid 6k for this cars final 5k miles”. No thanks; it’s a pile of bad mods, questionable taste, and a completely shot interior.
I wouldn’t mind that Thunderbird for 4k though.
Yeah, I really wanted to pick the Supra but this was my thought as well. If you’ve paying for a car’s last miles, you might as well go with the cheaper option…
T-Bird, plus I learned to drive in an 89 LX T-Bird so personal nostalgia…
I kinda doubt the Supra would even go another 5k miles.
Lol, I’m trying to be optimistic here!
Fair 🙂