90's Touring Car Front Macpherson strut? What am I looking at? Toyota's Superstrut?

I was reading up on JGTC and Asian Touring Cars, and I just saw a recurring mysterious front MacPherson Strut layout.

As you know, Mac Struts look simple AF.  There's a balljoint at the bottom, there's a strut top... uhh... up top... and it is at those two points where the whole assembly turns.



The new Civic Type Rs have a different steering axis from the upper strut top and lower balljoint, but even that is still simple to understand with a diagram.

But lately, I've been looking at some 90's JGTC and 90's Japan and Asian Touring Cars. Notably the SW20 MR2 in GT300 class for JGTC, and an AE101 Sedan in Touring Cars.
 

They both have this thing going on in the front end. And honestly, I'm not sure what I'm looking at.


My guess is that it's Toyota's Super Strut, but adapted for racing using billet parts. But honestly, I don't even really know how Toyota's Super Strut works, and what its advantages are. Furthermore, I guess it reveals another thing about Touring Car and JGTC rules: You can adopt a suspension you didn't have on that specific road car you're racing, as long as you have it on "a" road car you have. To my knowledge the AE101 sedan and SW20 only ever had basic MacPherson struts, and did not have limited editions with super struts, but the ST205 Celica GT4 definitely had. Edit to add: AE101 20V 2dr Coupe also had Super Struts.

page:
Toyota's Super Strut, and why I have trouble visualizing it.
https://global.toyota/en/detail/7829158






 

Ok. This animation works better than the drawing I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t375GCEyIU

Oh snap!  Youtube to the rescue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4uBKQyXzck

Too many balljoints. Looks like a nightmare during suspension refresh time.

Seems like a really weird way to raise the roll center without affecting the steering axis inclination.  If I'm reading it right and picturing how it affects track width vs a regular strut setup.

From what I've heard of the superstrut suspension is does handle better than an ordinary macstrut, but it was only tried in a few JDM oddities and there is that ridiculous number of balljoints and bushings to service. If JGTC teams are running them that again suggests that they work. It's supposed to have a better camber curve and steering geometry than a macstrut but with similarly tight packaging.

The new Civic Type R's Dual Axis Strut suspension looks similar but works in a very different way, it looks like the wheel camber is still locked relative to the angle of the strut as with a conventional macstrut setup and unlike the superstrut setup, but it separates all the steering geometry from the strut angle. Superstrut does the same thing as well, so you could look at the Dual Axis Strut as a simplified Superstrut.