My little black sportscar
Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2014 9:46 amIn the fall last year I suddenly found myself without a working car. So rushed onto the used cars sites looking for everything interesting or if it couldn't be interesting then it should be dirt cheap to run. One of the early favorites was a 306 GTi having had a good experience with my 405.
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).
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).
), It already have a second gen 16 valve 4A-GE. The 20 valve version is a common swap but in Denmark you run into tax and MOT problems with it. While I haven't driven an 4A-GZE supercharged car, I would think that the supercharger takes away some of the eagerness which is the best bit about the engine.