MR2.
Mr. 2 if you're nasty.
It’s a badass spaceship from Japan that went head to head with some of the best exotics
in the world.
What it lacked in size it made up for in pure driving joy, and it helped Toyota establish
a decade’s long reputation for performance.It's one of the famous Toyota triplets, it's the
Supra's little brother and at one point it was faster.
That's right.
Here’s everything you need to know to get Up to Speed on the Toyota MR2.
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This episode of Up To Speed is brought to you by Movement Watches.
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The Toyota MR2 began as a design experiment in 1979.
Lead Designer Akio Yoshida was trying to build a car that got great gas mileage and was fun to drive.
I love it, I love this car.
He was playing around with his sketch pad and thought “WHOA, what if I put the engine
behind the driver?”
The car could be really aerodynamic and the weight balance would be great for driving
around on the twisties.
“Holy crap guys, I think I just made a sports car!”
Yoshida’s bosses were like “Dude, you’re a little crazy, but we like it.
Let’s make this thing!”
The MR2 prototype rode a fine line between cutting edge and cutting costs.
The car was equipped with disc brakes at every wheel, which was advanced for the early eighties,
but also used simple MacPherson strut suspension, which...
wasn’t so advanced.
What critics might see as a way to cut costs, Toyota saw as innovative, minimalist design.
The simple nature of Macpherson struts made for less sophisticated handling, but they
take up a lot less room.
Which is important when you are putting an engine where it's not supposed to be, huh.
When you’re designing a small mid-engined car, you have to save space wherever you can.
I cannot stress this enough I learned it the hard way.
Don't make the same mistakes I have.
The Car was also powered by the world’s first production twin cam, 16 valve engine,
the 4A-GE.
Ever head of it, it's a freakin legend.
The little four banger hit redline at 7,400 rpm.
It freakin screamed, and it ripped.
The MR2 was Japan's first mid-engine car and it also had pop up freakin headlights.
Toyota was serious about making the MR2 really really good, they even tested the prototype
out at Willow Springs and had racing legend Dan Gurney help develop the suspension.
You know how every race car driver sprays champagne on the podium after they win?
Yeah, Dan Gurney invented that, so I think he knows a thing or two about making fast cars.
Sh*t cops.
Get down on the ground!
Dan and his team spent four days at Willow making tweaks to the car, to get it just right.
Gurney liked the car so much, he convinced Toyota to let him take the Prototype to
Angeles Crest highway so he could see how well it handled on real world conditions.
He freaking loved it.
He practically asked it to marry him.
He called it late at night and when, when it picked up he hung up.
He would text the MR2 randomly and say "What's up, how you been?
Just thinking about you."
That's how much he liked it.
Toyota gave us the ‘Midship Runabout 2-seater, that is actually what MR2 stands for, in 1984,
when it went on sale in Japan, and it was an instant favorite.
It was modern and exotic- the car was reminiscent of the prototypical driver’s car- the Lotus,
which was intentional.
Lotus helped Toyota design the suspension, and Toyota ‘borrowed’ a few Lotus design
cues for the body.
Alongside the Celica and Supra, the MR2 gave Toyota some serious performance cred.
If you wanted an affordable and reliable sports car in the 80s, you had get a Toyota!
Why did people love the MR2 so much?
Well I’ll tell ya bud!
Like the Miata and Nissan Z, the MR2 gave owners the raw driving thrill of a car exponentially
more expensive.
And since it was Japanese, you didn’t have to worry about getting it serviced every ten
thousand miles like a Ferrari.
For around 38 grand in today’s money, you could own a mid engined sportscar that looked
like a spaceship.
Yes, that's awesome.
In 1986 the MR2 was offered with a supercharger that produced 145 horsepower, which pushed
the car from zero to sixty in six and a half seconds.
That was faster than the Supra and almost as quick as the Ferrari 328.
The supercharger also had an innovative feature that allowed it to be disengaged when it wasn’t
needed to save gas.
It could also be bought with T-tops which pretty much makes the MR2 the most 80s car ever.
You got the T-Top, you got them Pop Up headlights and you got a supercharger.
This thing is everything we love from the 80s in one car, it’s amazing.
So now Toyota’s got a real sports car that’s beating everything on the road, so what do you do?
Naturally, they take it off road.
In the mid eighties Toyota built an MR2 rally car called the ‘Two Twenty Two D’.
It may have looked like an MR2, but shared virtually nothing with the production version,
except for some body panels and that Macpherson strut suspension.
It was all wheel drive, and reportedly made over 600 horsepower.
It also looked like freaking monster.
So how did this beast perform?
Well, it didn’t.
Unfortunately the class it was designed for, Group S, was scrapped with Group B. What’s Group B?
Only the most badass collection of Rally Cars ever assembled.
(Loud exhaust notes)
The second gen Mr. two debuted in 1990, with a fresh face and a sleek new bod.
Critics soon started calling the W20 the ‘Poor man’s Ferrari’ because it kinda looked like one.
The new MR2 embraced the Exotic mindset with a more luxurious interior and larger overall design.
It's still very small.
Chief Engineer Kazutoshi Arima.
Chief Engineer Kazutoshi Arima exclaimed that “The MR2 should be the perfect expression of freedom.”
Freedom!
Arima wanted the car to be a space where the Japanese driver could be themselves, and he
felt the rigors of life in Japan made it hard to do so.
The W20 weighed 400 pounds more than the previous car, but that didn’t matter because Toyota
got rid of the Supercharger and threw on a turbocharger.
It's a turbo Elaine, a turbo!
Making 200 horses, and it was only available with a manual transmission.
Which is freakin awesome.
These days the Turbo models go for about 2 to 3 times as much as the naturally aspirated ones,
which sucks because I'm paying like $6500 dollars a month in child support.
He's 22 years old Jessica!
The updated MR2 was again a legitimate threat to the ‘fancier’ sportscars.
The stock turbo MR2 beat the NSX, Supra and Ferrari 348 in the Quarter mile.
On the Japanese car show “Best Motoring” the MR2 went head to head against cars like
the M3, R32, RX7 and the Supra, all of them brand new at the time, and the MR2 held them
all off for a lap, like it was playing Gran Turismo on easy mode.
Toyota Racing Development, TRD, offered the MR2 with an official body kit and tuning package
turning the car into a replica of their TRD 2000 GT race car.
Customers could order the package with whatever engine and suspension upgrades they wanted,
with some rumored to produce over 500 horsepower.
Making it the most badass deathtrap Toyota ever made.
The second Gen MR2 was produced for ten years with only very few changes throughout
it was just that good.
The one major change Toyota made to the 2nd Gen MR2 was the suspension.
The car had a tendency to let the tail out if you let off the gas during a turn, which
would then snap back when the car found its weight balance.
Snap oversteer.
This is easy to correct if you have F1 driver level skills like me or Dan Gurney, but
it caught a lot of regular people off guard.
Toyota made tweaks to fix the problem in ‘93, but critics said the car had lost it’s edge.
Would you make up your mind?
Do you want the car to kill you or not?
I swear these car critics, I don't know man.
The third generation MR2 “Spyder” with a "y" was unveiled in 2000, this time offered
only as a convertible.
Fans were a little disappointed with the toned down looks but that didn’t matter because
this thing was really freakin’ good.
Some journalists called it the best handling car you could buy, even better than the freaking
Miata.
The new MR2 was being compared to the Porsche Boxster, which is exactly what Toyota wanted.
Ya hear that Mazda?
Not only is our car better than your’s we’re better than Porsche too!
Suck it!
Ohhh!
The Spyder’s design was entirely focused on the driving experience.
Sure, It made ‘only’ 138 horsepower but the car was so light that it didn’t even matter.
Like the Miata and the Boxster, the Spyder rewarded drivers who kept their momentum going.
However, if you still find the power to be a little lacking, swapping for other Toyota
four cylinders or even some 6's is pretty easy.
The Spyders gained popularity as a great choice for first project cars.
They’re pretty cheap and since it’s a Toyota, you don’t have to worry about it
breaking down all the time.
MR2 sales started to decline around the world, and the Spyder ended production in 2007.
Toyota shifted their focus away from sports cars and towards building more practical cars
like the Prius, until 2013 when they Introduced the GT86, but that is a story for another day.
The MR2 was Toyota’s take on the exotic, both in terms of looks and driving feel, and
they did a pretty damn good job.
While it may have started out as an exploration in good gas mileage, The MR2 transformed into
a perfect mix of driving emotion, stellar design, and legendary Toyota reliability.
it's a really cool car.
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That is everything you need to know to get Up To Speed on the Toyota MR2.
We were literally bribed with cookies to make this one.
Donut fan Jack thinks he can bribe us with cookies, well he can.
We'll get the MR2 Up To Speed out asap.
Jack beautiful family, we love you.
We got Top 10's every Friday, Matt Field's FD Corvette build every Tuesday.
We got a lot of stuff going on, keep paying attention to Donut.
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