SOTW: Mk2 Toyota MR2

Mid-mounted engine, pretty curves, and all for Shed money. What's not to like?

By Riggers / Friday, 17 September 2010 / Loading comments

Last time a Mk2 Toyota MR2 graced the Shed stage, it was a

rather ratty but mechanically solid MR2 that we actually bought

, complete with matt white paint and free mould, for the princely sum of 500 quid.

It was also an early car, known to the MR2 cognoscenti as the Revision 1 (inexplicably, since it was the first version out), and to many an over-exuberant driver (and the motoring press) as a car that would have you facing the wrong way on a wet roundabout if you so much as spoke harshly to it.

That was sorted within a couple of years by tweaking the suspension geometry (creating the Revision 2) and, by the time this today's SOTW rolled out of a UK Toyota dealership for the first time in 1994, the MR2 was on to Revision 3.

By this time the always-pretty coupe had become a stable handler, and power was now up to 177bhp, from 153bhp. It still wasn't the agile B-road terrier that the first-generation MR2 had, been, but it had finally become the car it ought to have been from the outset.

As a result, later Mk2 MR2s are somewhat more desirable than earlier ones, particularly UK-spec cars (as with many Japanese cars of the 90s there is a plethora of imports scurrying around).

So although it's hardly difficult to find an MR2 for Shed money, finding a Revision 3 car - and a UK one at that - below a grand is a pretty rare event.

That it also has low-ish mileage, a claimed full service history, and an MOT until next June is a pleasant bonus. The only obvious black marks are an absence of tax (thus pushing, at £999, the rules of SOTW) and some chin scuffs on its front bumper.

Oh, and there's also the odd fact that the advert title suggests the car is a 2001 vintage, and has done 70,600 rather than the 113,00 miles suggested elsewhere, but we'd be prepared to bet that's user error rather than anything untoward.

Even so, if this car's West Yorkshire location hadn't been so far from PH Towers, it might well have found its way into the Riggers Shed stable, alongside the 328i Touring...