Toyota engineers have been spotted at the Nurburgring testing a Porsche 911 GT3 RS, potentially getting down some benchmarks in the development of its upcoming Supra revival.

An image has appeared on renowned Nurburgring enthusiast website BridgeToGantry, spotting the Porsche apparently owned by and/or under the control of Toyota. It was seen during a scheduled industry testing day.

It seems engineers could be using the previous-gen 997 GT3 RS at the ‘Ring to gain some valuable data in relation to cornering abilities and performance. We’re sure we don’t have to tell you, the GT3 is a very serious, stripped out race car for the road. Although the new Toyota Supra isn’t likely to be as serious as the GT3, Toyota could be benchmarking to understand the limits.

Engineers were also seen testing the last, fourth-gen Supra on the Nurburgring, possibly to make sure the new model rekindles some of the original spirit. Back then, the Supra came with a now-legendary ‘2JZ’ 3.0-litre twin-turbo inline six engine.

For the new model rumours suggest Toyota could adopt one of BMW’s TwinPower turbo four- or six-cylinder engines, while pairing in some kind of electric hybrid assist system using its own expertise.

Last week we heard news that Toyota had registered a trademark for “Supra” in Europe, following an earlier registration of the name in the USA back in 2014. It seems logical Toyota will apply the legendary name to the new sports car.

BMW, as part of an agreed co-development deal signed in 2012, is also engineering a vehicle alongside the Supra and will introduce a separate model based on the same foundations. There’s talk of it being its new sports convertible, replacing the Z4. The name ‘Z5’ has been thrown around but nothing is official just yet.

Toyota’s upcoming sports car is widely anticipated to revive the Supra nameplate, and while not locked in, the company’s chief engineer says he – and his colleagues – like to see that happen.

Speaking with CarAdvice at the international media drive for the facelifted Toyota 86 range, Tetsuya Tada, the company’s global chief engineer, said he wants the upcoming sports car – co-developed with BMW – to be named Supra.

“I love the Supra and I love the name Supra,” Tada-san said.

“It’s historically important to Toyota. We’re pushing for the name Supra for the new car we are [jointly] developing with BMW.”

Speaking on the Japanese giant’s collaboration with the Bavarian luxury marque, Tada-san said the partnership between the two companies has gone well so far, while extensive testing and development of the new vehicles has been conducted all around the world.

“I’d say the partnership is going well, very smooth,” he said. “We’re testing all over the world too, not just Fuji or Nurburgring, but all [around] the world.”

This isn’t the first time Tada-san has voiced his wishes for the Supra name to be revived. In May he made similar comments at Australia’s Festival of 86 event while also revealing his own wishes to have a modern successor to the Celica GT-Four which was hugely successful in the World Rally Championship (WRC) during the 1990s.

Despite their common origins, the BMW ‘Z5’ and Toyota Supra are set to have very different personalities, with the German car to have a more upmarket grand-tourer flavour while Japan’s entrant will be a more sports-focused offering, pitched as a performance flagship.

While Toyota’s car will sit above the 86 and be a successor to the original Supra (whether it wears the iconic name or not), BMW’s model is expected to replace the ageing Z4 sports car.

Tada-san agreed the two cars need to maintain their own identities, further supporting the claims the Z5 and Supra will share little more than their platforms and development process.

No prototypes of the Supra have been spotted testing yet, however, mules for the Z4 replacement – or ‘Z5’ – were snapped during cold weather testing earlier this year.

Reports a fortnight ago indicated the reborn Supra is scheduled for a 2018 launch, shortly after BMW’s sports car is released sometime in 2017.

The last Toyota Supra rolled off the production line in 2002, meaning a 2018 release would mark 16 years since the previous model was built.

It’s been a (very, very) long time in the making, but we finally have our first look at Toyota’s next-generation Supra through an actual prototype, with our spies even catching a glimpse of its interior.

It took Toyota a full decade after the demise of the fourth-generation Supra, codenamed A80, at the end of 2002, to announce a successor in 2012, when it revealed that it had teamed up with the BMW Group to co-develop a pair of sports cars.

Few details were released at the time, but we’ve since learned that the reborn Toyota Supra will be related to BMW’s Z4 successor, slated to be called Z5, with both models be built by the Canadian-owned Magna Steyr operation near Graz.

These spy shots of the new Supra, as well as of the Z5, confirm that the two cars will not only look completely different, but will have different body-styles as well, with the Toyota being a coupe, and the BMW, a soft-top roadster (unlike today’s Z4 that employs a pricier and heavier retractable hardtop).

Keeping in mind that the prototype pictured here is employing non-production front and rear end parts and panels, the new Supra looks closer related to the Toyota 86 than to the 2014 FT-1 Concept, which was believed at the time to heavily influence the design of Toyota’s coupe. Nevertheless, it has a far more aggressive stance with a more elongated bonnet and stubby rear than Toyota’s entry-level rear-wheel drive sports car.

We’re unsure how much of the interior bits are production ready, but while the (backlit?) instrument panel gauges do look very Toyota-like, the air-conditioning controls on the center stack and the steering wheel give us a BMW-kind of vibe.

Whereas the new Toyota Supra and BMW Z5 will wear different costumes on the outside, they’re going to share many components under the skin, including a new platform that takes advantage of BMW’s weight-saving methods, electronic architecture, multilink rear suspension, and possibly even transmissions, albeit with unique settings for each model.

Depending on whom you ask, the two cars may or may not share common gasoline engines driving the rear wheels. Some sources have speculated that the BMW will develop and provide four-cylinder and inline-six turbocharged mills for both cars, with Toyota hybridizing a top-end Supra model with its own electric motors, while others claim that the Japanese carmaker will use a new twin-turbocharged V6 pumping out some 400 horses alongside its own turbocharged four-pots. Toyota and BMW have yet to comment on the matter, but it’s worth mentioning that from what they’ve said up until now, their powertrain partnership involves hybrid systems and diesel engines.

BMW is rumored to roll out the Z5 in the second half of 2017, with Toyota following within the next year.