Toyota is rumored to be working on a new electric MR2 sports car, but beyond a few concept teasers there’s little sign it will be here anytime soon. Which means you’ve definitely got time to get your mid-engined rocks off in this good-as-new first-generation MR2 while you wait for the genuinely new one to arrive.
Registered in Northern Ireland in 1990, it’s one of the last of the angular series 1 cars, that being the year the curvier, second generation model arrived, and it’s covered only 1,377 miles (2,216 km) since. You might conclude that the first owner didn’t really take to the car, except that he decided to keep it for 31 years, only parting company with it in 2021, so maybe it was more a case of not being able to bear seeing it get worn out through use.
It’s certainly not worn out. Having covered the equivalent of six weeks of normal mileage in three decades, it’s in stunning condition, and if that odometer read zero miles you’d be inclined to believe it based on these images. The white paint is blemish-free, and unlike the same-color, same-year example I owned almost 20 years ago you can bet the underside doesn’t contain more mig weld than floorpan metal.
The gray velour interior is equally tidy and free from mods, right down to the funky fingertip-operated rotary dials for lights and wipers located either side of an instrument binnacle housing a rev counter that’s redlined at 7,700 rpm. That was a fairly serious rev limit for the 1980s and made possible because Toyota’s legendary 4A-GE 1.6-liter four is slotted behind the seats.
Related: Did You Know Zagato Once Designed A Toyota MR2-Based Model?
This is the same 16-valve motor fitted to the front-engined, rear-wheel drive AE86 Corolla GT coupe and AE82 front-wheel drive Corolla GT hot hatch, and was rated at 120 hp (122 PS) and 105 lb-ft (143 Nm) in Europe, which didn’t get the punchier supercharged MR2 available in North America. That torque output looks laughably small but thanks to final drive gearing better suited to eighth-mile drag racing than freeway use, the MR2 could dispatch 60 mph (96 km/h) in 8 seconds.
We’ve no doubt the all-new electric MR2 will be substantially quicker, but it might not be substantially more expensive. UK-based dealer Appreciating Classics wants £34,999 ($42,162) for this pristine 1990 car, making it almost exactly the same price as a U.S-spec 2022 GR Supra ($43,540), and the kind of money we’d love to see Toyota ask for the next MR2 to keep it attainable.
