We've all looked in wonder at staggeringly low-mileage used cars for sale. But there's low mileage and then there's low mileage, as this little Toyota proves. It's been used so seldom that the windscreen wash button has never been pressed, not even by the MOT tester. And it's 32 years old in 2022.
What's the magic number, then? 1,368 miles, or 42 a year, or less than a mile a week for its entire life. There are 32-year-old human beings that have run backwards more than 1,368 miles in their life. Probably. It's a remarkably low number for a car that's actually been driven, rather than parked up from new in a collection.
It would be incredible for any car, leave alone an MR2, the Midship Runabout that was designed very explicitly with driving in mind. Fizzy twin cam behind the driver, rear-wheel drive, and lightweight construction saw to that. The temptation to drive it at every possible opportunity must have been considerable. Let's not forget, either, that any kind of survivor from the first generation in 2022 has achieved what many did not - those MR2s that weren't spun into stationary objects rusted into crumbs a good while ago. Everything really was stacked against it surviving this long with so few miles.
Yet here we are, with what's believed to be one of the last Mk1 MR2s made and almost certainly the lowest mileage one. It's no scabby barn find, either; wherever the original owner did pootle off to in their Toyota sports car, they made sure to store it properly. Maybe the pictures don't quite do it justice, but there really isn't an imperfection to be found. Even the engine bay looks how it must have when Maggie Thatcher ended her time as PM. It really is that old - and that pristine.
Sold new in Northern Ireland, the MR2 is now for sale there again. It would almost seem a shame for it to leave, but the selling dealer is also offering delivery to anywhere in the UK. As well they might, you'll say, for £32,995. Valuing any low mileage classic is difficult, leave alone with the car market as it currently is and when considering such a special find.
Unsurprising that the lowest mileage MR2 we've ever seen is also the most expensive - make of it what you will. But we live in the time of the £90k Clio V6, so a £30k MR2 almost seems par for the course. Almost. Then again, if Toyota does go ahead with an EV MR2 reinvention, don't be surprised if this one receives rather more attention than the two magazine articles it's already featured in...
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