You don’t expect to find a Toyota Supra in France. Not a real one. Not that one. The Mark IV. The "more than you can afford pal" one. The twin turbo, saucer eyed, do-it-all road weapon from the era when Japan had gotten tired of asking and started telling one. You expect baguettes on the seat of a Citroën built for carrying eggs. You don’t expect to hear a 2JZ barking through roundabout number eighteen on the way to dropping off his daughter at school. But Stan Mosser did just that.
The Supra was never officially imported to France. Why? Because the French government, never one to shy away from punishing enthusiasts, wrapped performance cars like this one in red tape, choking them with emissions regulations, displacement based taxes, and ownership penalties designed to keep anything exciting out of reach. The 3.0 liter twin turbo inline six under the hood might be an engineering icon, but in France it was a fiscal liability. It’s why Toyota never bothered bringing them in, and why every one that made it here had to be dragged through customs by someone with more vision than fear. Like Stan.
The legacy of the MKIV says everything about what this car is: part myth, part machine, and deeply personal. Imported into a culture that didn’t grow it, nurtured by someone who’s as enamored with the idea of the Supra as he is with the reality of owning one. And that ownership isn’t passive. This Supra doesn’t live under a car cover. “I can drive it brutally,” Stan says, almost surprised by the range of the car’s personality. “And I can also drive it much more gently.” The Supra, he explains, rewards nuance.
In France, that matters. This isn’t Los Angeles. There are no six lane highways to launch into, no Cars & Coffee crowds to stunt for. The Supra here is contextualized differently. It stands out not just because of what it is, but where it is. Stan knows it too. “I’m holding back,” he says, half convincing himself. But the tire marks left in empty intersections and the wide arcs painted through roundabouts tell a more complete story. Stan isn't afraid of the 2JZ GTE.
Its a masterclass in over-engineering. With a cast iron block that shrugs off abuse, a forged steel crankshaft, oil squirters for piston cooling, and main caps that could be suited to a diesel truck, Toyota built the engine with headroom in mind. It was not a racing engine. It was a civilian one, built because Toyota believed in the power of designing parts to perform well below their failure threshold.
The inline six is internally balanced and the block resists flex under boost. Stock internals can hold well over 700 horsepower without protest, and with upgraded turbos and fuel, four digit builds are common. Tuners lean on it not because they want to break it, but because they know it will not. “The indestructible engine,” Stan calls it. He is not exaggerating. It is mechanical truth, forged in cast iron and proven on streets and circuits across the world.
At the time, Toyota’s philosophy leaned heavily on durability as a form of brand integrity. The 2JZ was not designed by marketers or cost cutters, but by engineers given the freedom to pursue reliability and performance in equal measure. Internal retrospectives make it clear: over-engineering was seen not as excess, but as insurance, against abuse, against modification, and for the reputation of the people who signed their names to it. That mindset, designing not just to the spec but far beyond it, still echoes in Toyota engines today.
And yet, even with all the history, pedigree, and potential, the Supra can still just be a car. A good one. “Today, it’s one of the cars that really made me feel most comfortable,” Stan says, not in the sense of plushness or isolation, but in how it responds to him. In how alive it feels. “There is no limit,” he adds, but you get the sense he’s not talking about speed.
Maybe that’s why it feels so right seeing a car like this far from home, carving up European backroads, echoing off stone buildings, idling outside schools. It’s the context that makes it sing. The contrast. The idea that something so globally iconic can still feel personal, grounded in moments like a school drop off. “It was her superstar moment,” Stan laughs.
That’s the heart of it. For Stan the Supra doesn’t need to be on a dyno or on the silver screen. It just needs a road.
