Markups mark out the Toyota Supra as hot

WITHOUT doubt the new Toyota Supra is hot. The first example to roll off the production line was snapped by a US dealer for $2.1 million at a charity auction. The latest model is so hot that good examples of the previous one are commanding premium prices, too. Earlier this year two fourth-generation Supras hammered for $170,000-plus at two separate auctions.

So with the 2020 Supra just starting to trickle in, but with the buzz surrounding the car high, the situation has turned into a sellers’ market where dealers are marking up prices — what Toyota says the car should sell for is only a suggested price, after all.

In the US, motoring website Jalopnik noted the stirrings of this trend. It cited one Toyota dealership is selling on its site a Launch Edition Supra for $100,000. Another listed a car, variant unknown, for $84,814, which Jalopnik said is about a $30,000 markup.

Here in the Philippines, a search at a popular online marketplace reveals only one post for a Supra that’s listed for about P300,000 more than the local suggested retail price, or SRP. But the ad, posted months before the Supra was launched in the country, appears to be aimed at people who would want to jump the queue for reservations.

A Toyota dealer executive who refused to be named for lack of official authorization to speak about the matter said dealers have largely stuck to the SRP, although some of their sales personnel may first accommodate reservations from clients more favored than others. If anything, the offers for paying over SRP actually come from customers wanting to get the Supra as soon as possible.

But the official also said the brand experiences this periodically — like when the 86 was new. Or, more recently, with the Alphard. The Supra, it just so happens, is the hot thing at the moment.