8-Star Beta Tester
Posts: 468
Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2010 1:49 pm
Location: Denmark
Cars: AW11, 405 T16
My little black sportscar
I might have considered another e30 if I had found a cheap, solid 325i.
On the completely other side I considered some 90s diesels. Although technically an 107/Aygo/C1 would have been cheaper, but those are just too bland and I would lost the chance to mock my coworker that have Aygo.
So some of the beta testers here where giving me suggestions on what car to get, and Adam_d remarked that he wouldn't even suggest Toyotas since he knew I didn't like them.
Now, I don’t dislike Toyotas, I dislike moderne boring Toyotas (which imo is almost everything they have made after 1995 ). So to prove that put I made a quick search for what is my favorite Toyota, at least if you don’t counting early 70s Celicas and other unrealistic stuff.
What I found was a black 1989 MR2 AW11 that looked quite clean and was in same town as where I work. A few days later I went to see it and bought it on the spot.
So what’s it like. Well it’s surprisingly quiet, maybe because my e30 was lacking a bit sound insulation. It’s quite low geared which helps the eager but not particularly powerful engine, but 3200 rpm at 100 km/h is a bit more than what I would prefer. I hope to do a 6 speed swap in future for that very reason.
The engine does have a nice change in note at 4.5k rpm which help the eager fell of the engine.
In regards to the driving dynamics the car have strong lift-off oversteer characteristics, again I'm used to an e30 which is also known for snap-oversteer.
The front is very light and it makes the steering almost feel power assisted, I don't think a quicker rack would hurt it though.
Finally the fuel economy is way more speed sensitive than the e30. It gets well into the 14s km/l (7.1 l/100km, 39 mpg (imp), 32 mpg(US) ) when driven nicely, but driving a bit faster on the motorway can make it drop into the 12s km/l (I’m sure it will go much lower as well).