Toyota MR2 Buyer's Guide
Four tracked MR2 sales, £2,400 to £5,500, median £3,400, with one more live as we write. Three generations of mid-engined Toyota, all currently trading between banger money and modest money, which makes the MR2 the cheapest properly engineered mid-engined car in our records. That will not stay true indefinitely.
What to pay
£2,400 to £3,400, floor to median, buys running, usable cars across all three generations, where the deciding factors are rust and neglect rather than specification. £3,400 to £5,500, median to ceiling, buys the better-kept examples: lower owners, continuous history, unwelded originality. All three generations sit inside this one narrow band, so a buyer's money goes on condition, not on choosing between Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3. One live lot means the search takes patience.
What goes wrong
Rust is the decider on the first two generations: rear arches and sills are the established rot points on Mk1 and Mk2, and a car that has escaped them is worth the premium. The Mk3 roadster largely escapes the corrosion but demands evidence of the same servicing discipline. Mechanically this is Toyota dependability with the engine behind the seats; the drivetrains are long-lived and the parts network remains strong. The pre-facelift Mk2's snap-oversteer reputation is mostly folklore amplified by period road tests; driven with the respect any mid-engined car asks, it is a benign, well-balanced thing.
Our view
The MR2 offers the mid-engined experience at a price that still assumes it is just an old Toyota, and the reliability record means a good one costs little to keep. Buy the least rusty example available, generation second, and keep it standard. Cars this cheap, this durable and this configured do not usually stay this cheap; the trajectory only points one way.
