Toyota will turn the Supra into a pinball wizard for the big game

toyota-supra-auction — The first Supra off the line may have already sold for a boatload of greenbacks, but now Toyota is trying to sell the rest of them with a new Super Bowl ad.
Toyota

When Toyota dropped its "Toni" ad on Monday, we were kind of surprised. I mean, it was almost a week ahead of the Super Bowl, and it seemed like maybe the company was jumping the gun a little. But now we know that it had another trick up its sleeve, a second spot called "Wizard," which will showcase the brand-new Supra as it navigates a giant pinball machine.

The spot is set to air immediately after the Super Bowl halftime show, and it must be awesome (or terrible) because Toyota is keeping a super tight leash on it. No amount of pestering or begging has gotten them to send it to us in advance.

For those of you with memory problems, the Toyota GR Supra made its world debut last month at the Detroit Auto Show to something decidedly less than universal acclaim. Lots of people hate how it looks, and they hate that it's a BMW, but we liked it well enough, and our editor-in-chief enjoyed flogging it on a track last year when it was still wrapped in camouflage.

The Supra will launch in the US later this year with a BMW-derived turbocharged inline-six engine and an eight-speed automatic transmission. There is a rumored four-cylinder version coming down the pike that could serve as a replacement for the aging 86 platform, but that hasn't been confirmed.