(engine sputtering and revving)
- Oh my god.
(engine revving)
- How is it no matter what comes out of Toyota,
it is almost always loved?
It's like Halo 3: ODST,
it's like initially it was received okay,
but didn't really start getting the love
that it deserved until like three to five years later,
where people started to respect the storyline
that they gave to the small initial DLC,
which by the way,
if you're a video game person,
Halo 3: ODST is the best game of all time.
Halo ODST still has still
some of the greatest environmental music ever.
And I don't care what you say.
Toyota, though, they do the same thing.
There's very few times that they miss the mark.
Even if people don't really see it initially.
There was a car that came from Toyota
that was very much that same exact story.
I'm Alex, AlexFi on Instagram,
and in today's episode,
we're taking a look at the birth,
the flight and the ultimate death
of the beautiful little middle engine beauty, all right.
We're talking about what exactly happened
to the Toyota MR2.
(upbeat techno music)
And welcome to Fitment Industries.
No, not figment,
not fitness, not Fitbit, Fitment, all right.
The models struggle bus the hell out of that
at SEMA yet again,
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Okay.
With that now out of the way,
be sure to check out the website.
Cause we've got so much going on right now.
It would mean the world to us
if you could take a look at it.
But let's talk about this crazy little tiny car okay.
Oh, and before I forget, drop a comment,
let us know what you'd like to see us talk about next,
because that's what we keep building episodes on for y'all.
I literally sit there, I read the comments
and I also see the guy that's still talking about the W8.
It was the mid seventies, okay.
The oil crisis of the seventies
were causing people to take all sorts
of like unauthorized medication and feels
and Volkswagen buses were just bussing.
They were the coolest things in the world, okay.
But inside that same timeframe was a small company
that goes by the name of Toyota.
Now Toyota had established a goal of building a car
that would be great to drive, affordable,
and get good gas mileage, okay.
Something that harbored the feelings of a sports car
without actually being one.
The primary intention was
to not actually be a sports car, okay.
But once the crisis began to subside
and oil began doing oil things again,
and Toyota began to build the car
to what they wanted it to be.
Starting with the basics
of just where the motor should be.
That's where they started.
Eventually MR2 would have a mid engine,
transversely placed design,
with everything else built
around that fundamental key, crucial thing
that makes the MR2 so very special.
Okay.
You gonna want to come close
because I'm about to blow your mind.
The MR2 was not designed by Lotus
and assembled in Toyota, okay.
Get that out of your noggin, it didn't happen.
It's fake news, okay.
However, Roger Becker of Lotus
did assist in the suspension development of the car,
where that rumor was initially sourced from.
But Toyota does get the majority ownership of these trophies
when it comes to the MR2, same with copying GM.
I'm not sure where the GM rumor came from,
but that's also not true.
We're just trying to problem solve.
They were trying to problem solve
the same problem at the same time, okay.
Again though, what made this special for Toyota
and what Yoshida were focusing on
was the fact that this was going to be a fun commuter car,
not a straight line speed sports car.
They didn't want it to have that connotation to it.
While Toyota was strong, and the reliability
and cost-conscious style building process,
the assistance from Toyota on suspension and performance
assisted in rounding out the car
for its initial unveiling in the eighties.
And there was some good ass testing
that was going into this car.
Dan Gurney's name was literally all over it.
And if you're a fan of the eighties cars,
you know who that is.
And the prototype would actually spend quite a bit of time
at Willow Springs here in the States for development.
So they could really refine the feeling of the MR2.
And when the MR2 launched,
it launched with a ton of love,
it could keep up with the competition
that it didn't really ever talk about.
It looked sharp.
It came in a funky platform design
that garnered plenty of attention
and could hold its own
even against the most conventional construction design.
Like people knew it was different,
but it wasn't different enough to put people off.
And when Toyota started to add superchargers,
that's when things really started to get wild.
I mean, in 1988,
Toyota would introduce the MR2 with a supercharged model,
which was a lower compression, little bit heavier,
a little chunkier,
but more powerful MR2
that put it at the top of its model class
and started to egg on some of the biggest
and greatest of the time.
Even the likes of Ferrari.
We're looking at this little tiny Toyota, okay.
The 4A-GZE was a good foundation.
And what was actually what allowed people like you,
and people like me,
to make 700 horsepower widow makers
out of this tiny little car.
Needless to say that the eighties were like,
good for Toyota, but the nineties were great for Toyota.
Okay.
So much so that
even with Toyota's meticulous part changeover
during the first generation of this car's entire thing,
Toyota would eventually just introduce another MR2,
the second generation that most of us know and love.
If you guys have the first generation, please don't be mad.
There's tons of things that they did to it.
But the second generation, it was beautiful.
Okay.
Ferrari, like if you wanted a Ferrari,
but you couldn't afford a Ferrari,
you bought a Second Gen MR2, it was sexier, okay.
It was smarter, okay.
And it had some body redesign
that finally gave all the little changes
they did in the First Gen some visualization.
It was the car you didn't know you needed.
The second generation would come out
with beautiful sloped lines, supercharged goodness.
The 3S-GTE.
Sound familiar?
It would come with 200 horsepower,
200 foot pounds of torque, a manual transmission,
a six second zero to 60,
and a 14 second quarter mile in the nineties.
And that was just the beginning.
Racing production companies started coming
out of the woodwork
and making things for these cars
that truly changed the game for the modification community.
They came out at a great time and I mean,
people were loving what was coming from these cars
in the nineties.
It was good.
It's good to have a little love.
The MR2 would get love from Tom's,
especially the performance group.
It would get love from TRD.
It would go on to set like land speed records in 1992
and remain undefeated in its class.
And I mean the modifications that this car locked,
the G BGT record.
And as of July of 2015,
it's still hadn't been beaten by any two-liter production,
turbocharged GT car.
The car flourished.
It was awesome.
It blossomed, it was beautiful.
It was the gal or guy that found themselves
that they're leaving their hometown city only to come back,
looking like an actor from a Hallmark movie.
You're just confused.
You're happy, but you're slightly jealous
that you didn't maybe find one earlier.
The third generation though
was probably not as cool as SW 20,
even though it had damn near perfect balance.
But for some reason, even though Toyota was known
for creating some damn good cars,
the MR2 and the Celica were canceled,
by a gigantic company because Toyota blew up.
So why, why did you take that away from us?
Okay.
Listen, I want to talk about the third gen more,
but Steve is going to yell at me
because they're kind of weird to look at.
Just swap out the motor with the SCCA GT
and you pretty much get a Third Gen MR2
in what it should have actually been.
(indistinct)
So where, just why,
and just what happened to the Toyota MR2
and why didn't Toyota return
with a new mistress for the super in the past few years
and with another name like Subaru behind it,
Like they've coming out with these cars,
but none of them are theirs.
And why is the MR2 just collecting dust?
One thing has to be clear.
The aftermarket scene of the MR2
is likely one of the founding reasons,
literally any other car also got aftermarket support,
HKS, Blitz, Phoenix power,
the SW 20 found in the second gen
would commonly start cranking out 500 wheel horsepower
with love from companies like these.
Phoenix power.
I mean, they were just monumental at the time
and it didn't matter that it had like a wicked overseer snap
and it wanted to kill you.
It was still getting modified to infinity and beyond.
That's the cheesy thing I got for today.
The Toyota MR2 isn't with us much any more
for a few reasons,
but it actually started well before
the increased competition space,
which is what a lot of people think
is the reason as to why it died.
The first one would be that MR2 initially filled a hole.
It was a fun A-to-B cruiser that could be enjoyed
and driven enthusiastically.
And throughout the early eighties and into the nineties,
it did exactly that.
It accomplished the goal.
And as the nineties came through,
there was no shortage of competition Japanese sports cars,
which initially pushed the MR2
in a slightly different space,
as people were starting to compare the MR2
to not an entry level sports car,
but now a fully big 3000 GTV R4.
And it just didn't work.
Even though Toyota didn't want it to be associated with it,
that's how the consumers took it.
And while MR2 survived, it knew its days were numbered
as just being a fun sports car that was a commuter.
It had to make a shift.
And that shift was not one that many enthusiasts enjoyed.
And that was essentially what birthed
that Third Gen MR2,
and that's the spider layout.
And that was the reduction in power.
Now it's still a fantastic car,
but it wasn't what people were expecting.
The SW 20 was incredible,
but you had to make it further incredible
to scale with its competition
if you wanted the MR2 to survive.
So while the others laid dead at Y2K,
like the 3000 GT,
the MR2 had to try to find a new market
and while it survived for a few more years,
there's not much out there for it to stay alive
as you go past the early 2000's
because people just didn't see it as a fantastic swap.
And while I don't speak bad on the third gen,
it was lighter, it was simpler, it was cleaner.
It was still a properly fun driver's car
that got some love by some modification communities.
It was good.
However, the interest in this car specifically,
and those like it really began to fade
and some consider this due to the market
pulling away from the sports car market.
But some would also argue
that this has a lot to do with Toyota electing
to give it a shorter life span
with its limited models, trim options,
and simplified production schedule.
I mean, when you look at it, there wasn't as much to it.
Toyota, instead of evolving it, simplified it.
That simplification paired with like us in the US
handling a global recession
made us not really think that the beautiful,
big-eyed baby maker, you know, MRS was totally worth it.
And after all,
most people just realized
that their house was like 66% worth
what it was supposed to be,
because people were borrowing money
that they weren't supposed to
and houses that were too big.
What the MR2 did that not other marks did,
was that it was genuinely focused on a platform
that its intention was to be an A-to-B fun daily driver,
not just a huge sports car.
It was made by a company that at the time
began to truly embody and lead the charge,
organized, lean operations in their production facilities.
The reason Toyota's huge is because of their manufacturing.
Okay.
And if there was one company
that knew exactly what they were making
and its likely shelf life, it was Toyota.
And while I will always miss the MR2
and the red and yellow one
that used to fly around Eau Claire when I was 18,
that would whoop absolutely everyone's ass on Claremont.
I will patiently wait for Toyota
to take some of like maybe their Camry sales
that they've got going on recently,
and re-introduce an MR2 for people like us,
that weren't old enough to buy one with a good spec,
but we're now too old
and want to jump back into the platform.
We need a new one, that's me, I'm people.
But what do you think about the MR2
and what's your favorite generation?
Let us know below,
and if you're looking for aftermarket wheels, tires,
or suspension, or wheel and tire packages,
be sure to check us out over at fitmentindustries.com.
Don't forget, we do have quick delivery on certain stuff.
So you can get it in as little as seven days.
I'm Alex from Fitment Industries and...
I'm just saying there was a red,
if you guys are still here,
there was a red and a yellow one in Eau Claire
that were like 650 wheel horsepower.
There was a white Supra that was 600 wheel horsepower.
And I remember on Three Lane Claremont,
both MR2's made that Supra,
Mark Four Supra, look like it was going backwards
because those cars were so fast.
That's all I got.
All right.
We'll see you later.
(upbeat techno music)