mmcartalk
Expert
- Messages
- 4,157
- Reactions
- 2,675
MM Retro Write-Up: 1994 Toyota MR2 Turbo
I, myself, never actually owned an MR2....affectionately known as "Mister-Two". But my former Flight Instructor did.....I also became close personal friends with him, he still lives in the D.C. area, and has stayed in contact with me for some 35 years now. He was a dyed-in-the-wool Toyota fan for years, and had one of the classic Second-Generation Turbo models. His motto, outside of the cockpit, was always "Cars that Don't Break"... at least until he started having trouble with two recent Sienna minivans (one his personal vehicle, the other owned by his company) and had trouble getting Toyota to honor the warranty. In the cockpit, he was a superb instructor, gave me excellent training, and I trusted him more than anyone else I ever flew or instructed with (especially since he was a lot more resistant to getting queasy or airsick from turbulence and G-forces than I was LOL). When we got back down on the ground, however, it was a different matter....he considered me the expert when it came to car-shopping and checking out a vehicle for defects.
For years, he had driven old, well-used Toyota Tercels as his personal daily-drivers...small, cramped, slow, but economical and as reliable as the sunrise each morning. He really couldn't afford much more, since one really doesn't make much money as a Flight-Instructor in General Aviation. To make real money in aviation, one usually has to get into the airlines and get into the let seat of a large jumbo-jet, which takes a LONG time....and many of them come from the military, where they learned to fly large aircraft at Uncle Sam's expense. Since he had an FAA-waiver on his uncorrected eyesight, the airlines didn't hire him despite him having an ATP (Airline-Transport-Pilot) certification. So, in the early 1990s, he retired from flying and got another job driving limos, which paid substantially more, and had much more steady and reliable business. He lived at home with his parents (who have since passed away, but who I also was very close friends with), so, while doing so, he was able to save up some cash for a nicer car than those old Tercels.
And, when the second-generation MR2 came out, he was clearly mesmerized by it. By then, he wanted a real sports-car (not a sport-coupe), and he and I had already looked at a used Nissan 300ZX, and one or two other competitors in that class. But, of course, he trusted the Toyota name, and the MR2 seemed to be just what he wanted.....he and I both thought that the second-generation model looked far better than the first. He decided that he wanted a bright red one, brand-new, with the turbo and all-black leather interior (the tan and black-and-red interiors were also an option, but he preferred the black). So, we discussed finances just to make sure he could afford one (which was, of course, a BIG step up from a used Tercel). When he decided that he could, we started looking for one.....which was generally more difficult in those early-90s days, as one did not have all of the Inventory-search devices and websites on-line that we do today. It was basically phone around, watch for ads, and, in some cases, have the dealerships themselves do area-searches for you.
There were a couple of red ones here in the D.C. area, but they lacked the black interior he wanted, so we didn't waste time looking at them. Finally, he said that he found a Toyota dealership, in Allentown, PA (which is a long drive from D.C., not far from New York City, that had one close to what he was looking for, so he asked me to take a drive with him up there to look at it. We made the drive up to Allentown from D.C., past the attractive Pennsylvania Dutch countryside at Lancaster and Reading, and looked at it. He turned it down, for reasons I can't (and he can't) remember. But the trip, nostalgia-wise, wasn't a total waste....we stopped, on the way back, to see one of my old boyhood homes in Phoenixville, PA, just outside Philadelphia, on the Schuylkill River, where we briefly stayed when my late father was treated for TB at the old Army hospital, right next door at Valley Forge. The house (we were there in 1958) was still standing, and, according to Google Maps, still does.
Luck would be with us in a few more days, though.....Miller Toyota, in Manassas, VA, not far from my house, got in a nice red turbo, with a black interior, and we went out to see it. It had everything my friend wanted...color, options, turbo engine. Best of all (and how's this for a stroke of luck), when the salesman was in the rest room, my friend saw a interesting-looking document sitting around in a corner of the cubicle. He pulled it out discreetly, looked at it, and (quietly) said "Whoa, Mike....look at this"...there was the actual dealer-cost, not just the factory-invoice. So, he wrote the figure down, and set the document back where it was. After the test-drive/inspection to make sure everything was OK (which is where my part came in), when it was time to start negotiating, he told the sales-rep "Let's not waste all night going back and forth on the haggling....I know exactly what you paid for this car." The salesperson said "Oh?", and when he was quoted the exact figure, his face turned red and admitted my friend was right. So, they very quickly reached a deal, and shook hands on it (I suspect that, in the future, that dealership was more careful about what they left sitting around, although I don't think they knew he found it).
So, since it was well after dark, the car went in the PDI bay the next morning, and we went back out to the dealership, picked it up, and celebrated at one of the many restaurants along route 234 in Manassas (Olive Garden or Red Lobster, I think)....had a real nice lunch.
OK, so much for the long story of how he got the car.....now for the car itself. Typical of Toyotas of that period (I have long-felt that Toyota did some of their best products in the early-mid-1990s), it was built like a Swiss Watch, although the rather thin doors didn't have a very solid thunk when they closed. The smoothly-done fire-engine-red clearcoat finish was like a jewel, and everything inside fit and operated with smooth precision. Like most small two-seaters (and, especially, mid-engined two-seaters), it was cramped inside, especially for someone my size (he was substantially smaller than I was). It was somewhat difficult for me to find a really comfortable seating position, although, of course, my back and legs were considerably stronger back then than they are now. The fact that the car sat an inch off the ground meant that one had to do some contorting to get in and out, especially for someone my size.....although nothing compared to what I went through with the Lotus Elise, which I described in another recent write-up.
I drove the car myself a few times......enough to have a fairly good idea of what its road-manners were like. On the road, like with some other small mid-engined vehicles I had earlier sampled (particularly the Pontiac Fiero) I found the steering a little twitchy, with a tendency to wander slightly left and right, particularly in a crosswind....a lot of small corrections needed to keep in the center of one's lane. However, it has to be noted that cars of this type are designed for quick-reaction steering, which is exacerbated even more by having the weight of the engine and transmission behind you, with little or no weight over the front wheels. It works superbly on a winding road....not-so-superbly on a windy Interstate, although I also have to note that later Porsche Boxsters I sampled managed to combine the MR2's winding-road abilities with more-stable reaction on the Interstate.
The turbo four was the usual Toyota (for the period) silky-smooth response, even with only four cylinders. When the turbo spooled up, there was enough torque to push you back firmly in the seat, even in the higher gears. The 5-speed manual, with its crisp, stubby, Miata-style shift-lever, shifted almost second-nature, and the hydraulic clutch operated like silk. There were almost no squeaks/rattles, except for a very minor creak that later developed around the T-Bar twin-sunroofs....that type of roof, evening the most solidly-built vehicles, invariably loses some structures strength. The car was louder, particularly when the engine revs came up, than a typical Toyota sedan...and louder than my Celica, but that's to be expected from the design. Aside from the tight seating, the ride-comfort on rough roads was probably the thing I disliked the most...this was definitely not his parent's soft-riding Avalon (which, incidentally, he and his parents also bought, later, from the same Toyota dealership). But, considering the very short wheelbase, light weight, and lack of suspension-travel, the ride comfort was not that bad for a pure-sports car. I did notice one other thing (as I also did with the later Third-Generation, non-turbo MR2)...the engine seemed to run hot, though it had large cooling-slots in the hood above it and some cooling-scoops in the rear fenders. It did, though, have a decent-size radiator up front and two long hoses, under the cabin, carrying coolant back to the engine. Like most mid-engined cars, it had two small trunks.....a taller, very narrow one in back, behind the engine, and a lower, shallower, wider one up front.....but this was clearly no Chevy Suburban for carrying things.
He loved that car, kept it in immaculate condition (he'd sometimes drive out to my place just so I could help him clean it) and kept it for several years, until he had to sell it due to some unforeseen financial-problems.....which I won't get into in this story. Turbos, in those days, had to be started and stopped very carefully compared to those of today. On start-up, you idled it very low until oil-pressure built up, used special Turbo-Approved oils, and on shutting down, you let it idle 2 minutes before shutting it off, so the oil didn't cook and crystalize at several hundred degrees Fahrenheit inside the hot turbo without any oil-pressure and flowing through the oil-cooler. He was religiously careful to do this (no exceptions), and, of course, kept everything spotless. When he sold it, the person who bought the car (who had it inspected by a mechanic) said the mechanic told it it was virtually like new. Also, while he owned it, he got some comments from admirers (and I agree) that, with its looks, it reminded some people of a low-cost Ferrari.
And, as Always, Happy-Car-Memories.
MM
I, myself, never actually owned an MR2....affectionately known as "Mister-Two". But my former Flight Instructor did.....I also became close personal friends with him, he still lives in the D.C. area, and has stayed in contact with me for some 35 years now. He was a dyed-in-the-wool Toyota fan for years, and had one of the classic Second-Generation Turbo models. His motto, outside of the cockpit, was always "Cars that Don't Break"... at least until he started having trouble with two recent Sienna minivans (one his personal vehicle, the other owned by his company) and had trouble getting Toyota to honor the warranty. In the cockpit, he was a superb instructor, gave me excellent training, and I trusted him more than anyone else I ever flew or instructed with (especially since he was a lot more resistant to getting queasy or airsick from turbulence and G-forces than I was LOL). When we got back down on the ground, however, it was a different matter....he considered me the expert when it came to car-shopping and checking out a vehicle for defects.
For years, he had driven old, well-used Toyota Tercels as his personal daily-drivers...small, cramped, slow, but economical and as reliable as the sunrise each morning. He really couldn't afford much more, since one really doesn't make much money as a Flight-Instructor in General Aviation. To make real money in aviation, one usually has to get into the airlines and get into the let seat of a large jumbo-jet, which takes a LONG time....and many of them come from the military, where they learned to fly large aircraft at Uncle Sam's expense. Since he had an FAA-waiver on his uncorrected eyesight, the airlines didn't hire him despite him having an ATP (Airline-Transport-Pilot) certification. So, in the early 1990s, he retired from flying and got another job driving limos, which paid substantially more, and had much more steady and reliable business. He lived at home with his parents (who have since passed away, but who I also was very close friends with), so, while doing so, he was able to save up some cash for a nicer car than those old Tercels.
And, when the second-generation MR2 came out, he was clearly mesmerized by it. By then, he wanted a real sports-car (not a sport-coupe), and he and I had already looked at a used Nissan 300ZX, and one or two other competitors in that class. But, of course, he trusted the Toyota name, and the MR2 seemed to be just what he wanted.....he and I both thought that the second-generation model looked far better than the first. He decided that he wanted a bright red one, brand-new, with the turbo and all-black leather interior (the tan and black-and-red interiors were also an option, but he preferred the black). So, we discussed finances just to make sure he could afford one (which was, of course, a BIG step up from a used Tercel). When he decided that he could, we started looking for one.....which was generally more difficult in those early-90s days, as one did not have all of the Inventory-search devices and websites on-line that we do today. It was basically phone around, watch for ads, and, in some cases, have the dealerships themselves do area-searches for you.
There were a couple of red ones here in the D.C. area, but they lacked the black interior he wanted, so we didn't waste time looking at them. Finally, he said that he found a Toyota dealership, in Allentown, PA (which is a long drive from D.C., not far from New York City, that had one close to what he was looking for, so he asked me to take a drive with him up there to look at it. We made the drive up to Allentown from D.C., past the attractive Pennsylvania Dutch countryside at Lancaster and Reading, and looked at it. He turned it down, for reasons I can't (and he can't) remember. But the trip, nostalgia-wise, wasn't a total waste....we stopped, on the way back, to see one of my old boyhood homes in Phoenixville, PA, just outside Philadelphia, on the Schuylkill River, where we briefly stayed when my late father was treated for TB at the old Army hospital, right next door at Valley Forge. The house (we were there in 1958) was still standing, and, according to Google Maps, still does.
Luck would be with us in a few more days, though.....Miller Toyota, in Manassas, VA, not far from my house, got in a nice red turbo, with a black interior, and we went out to see it. It had everything my friend wanted...color, options, turbo engine. Best of all (and how's this for a stroke of luck), when the salesman was in the rest room, my friend saw a interesting-looking document sitting around in a corner of the cubicle. He pulled it out discreetly, looked at it, and (quietly) said "Whoa, Mike....look at this"...there was the actual dealer-cost, not just the factory-invoice. So, he wrote the figure down, and set the document back where it was. After the test-drive/inspection to make sure everything was OK (which is where my part came in), when it was time to start negotiating, he told the sales-rep "Let's not waste all night going back and forth on the haggling....I know exactly what you paid for this car." The salesperson said "Oh?", and when he was quoted the exact figure, his face turned red and admitted my friend was right. So, they very quickly reached a deal, and shook hands on it (I suspect that, in the future, that dealership was more careful about what they left sitting around, although I don't think they knew he found it).
So, since it was well after dark, the car went in the PDI bay the next morning, and we went back out to the dealership, picked it up, and celebrated at one of the many restaurants along route 234 in Manassas (Olive Garden or Red Lobster, I think)....had a real nice lunch.
OK, so much for the long story of how he got the car.....now for the car itself. Typical of Toyotas of that period (I have long-felt that Toyota did some of their best products in the early-mid-1990s), it was built like a Swiss Watch, although the rather thin doors didn't have a very solid thunk when they closed. The smoothly-done fire-engine-red clearcoat finish was like a jewel, and everything inside fit and operated with smooth precision. Like most small two-seaters (and, especially, mid-engined two-seaters), it was cramped inside, especially for someone my size (he was substantially smaller than I was). It was somewhat difficult for me to find a really comfortable seating position, although, of course, my back and legs were considerably stronger back then than they are now. The fact that the car sat an inch off the ground meant that one had to do some contorting to get in and out, especially for someone my size.....although nothing compared to what I went through with the Lotus Elise, which I described in another recent write-up.
I drove the car myself a few times......enough to have a fairly good idea of what its road-manners were like. On the road, like with some other small mid-engined vehicles I had earlier sampled (particularly the Pontiac Fiero) I found the steering a little twitchy, with a tendency to wander slightly left and right, particularly in a crosswind....a lot of small corrections needed to keep in the center of one's lane. However, it has to be noted that cars of this type are designed for quick-reaction steering, which is exacerbated even more by having the weight of the engine and transmission behind you, with little or no weight over the front wheels. It works superbly on a winding road....not-so-superbly on a windy Interstate, although I also have to note that later Porsche Boxsters I sampled managed to combine the MR2's winding-road abilities with more-stable reaction on the Interstate.
The turbo four was the usual Toyota (for the period) silky-smooth response, even with only four cylinders. When the turbo spooled up, there was enough torque to push you back firmly in the seat, even in the higher gears. The 5-speed manual, with its crisp, stubby, Miata-style shift-lever, shifted almost second-nature, and the hydraulic clutch operated like silk. There were almost no squeaks/rattles, except for a very minor creak that later developed around the T-Bar twin-sunroofs....that type of roof, evening the most solidly-built vehicles, invariably loses some structures strength. The car was louder, particularly when the engine revs came up, than a typical Toyota sedan...and louder than my Celica, but that's to be expected from the design. Aside from the tight seating, the ride-comfort on rough roads was probably the thing I disliked the most...this was definitely not his parent's soft-riding Avalon (which, incidentally, he and his parents also bought, later, from the same Toyota dealership). But, considering the very short wheelbase, light weight, and lack of suspension-travel, the ride comfort was not that bad for a pure-sports car. I did notice one other thing (as I also did with the later Third-Generation, non-turbo MR2)...the engine seemed to run hot, though it had large cooling-slots in the hood above it and some cooling-scoops in the rear fenders. It did, though, have a decent-size radiator up front and two long hoses, under the cabin, carrying coolant back to the engine. Like most mid-engined cars, it had two small trunks.....a taller, very narrow one in back, behind the engine, and a lower, shallower, wider one up front.....but this was clearly no Chevy Suburban for carrying things.
He loved that car, kept it in immaculate condition (he'd sometimes drive out to my place just so I could help him clean it) and kept it for several years, until he had to sell it due to some unforeseen financial-problems.....which I won't get into in this story. Turbos, in those days, had to be started and stopped very carefully compared to those of today. On start-up, you idled it very low until oil-pressure built up, used special Turbo-Approved oils, and on shutting down, you let it idle 2 minutes before shutting it off, so the oil didn't cook and crystalize at several hundred degrees Fahrenheit inside the hot turbo without any oil-pressure and flowing through the oil-cooler. He was religiously careful to do this (no exceptions), and, of course, kept everything spotless. When he sold it, the person who bought the car (who had it inspected by a mechanic) said the mechanic told it it was virtually like new. Also, while he owned it, he got some comments from admirers (and I agree) that, with its looks, it reminded some people of a low-cost Ferrari.
And, as Always, Happy-Car-Memories.
MM