The Toyota MR2 Spyder Is the Sports Car You Forgot About

this is a 2001 toyota mr2 spider if you're a car enthusiast you know the mr2 well there was the first generation which everybody loved and there was the second generation which everybody loved and well this is the third generation that everybody forgot about today we're going to remember [Music] i've borrowed this mr2 spider from a viewer here in the dallas fort worth texas area which makes it the smallest car on the road in a land of pickups but it isn't just small now it was small when it came out back in 2000 this car is just 153 inches long which makes it the same length as a mini cooper it only seats two people it weighs just 2200 pounds and it has a mere two cubic feet of cargo space that's a third of what you'll get in a miata the mr2 spider is an unusual car now while everybody remembers the original mr2s which were both coupes or t-tops with fixed roofs this one was a soft top convertible which is a little bit unusual but it kept the mid-engine design from those cars after all mr2 stands for midship runabout two-seater so basically this was like a mid-engine miata now under the hood which is back here you will find a 138 horsepower 1.8 liter four-cylinder now most people who got this car chose the regular traditional three pedal manual transmission and that is what's in this car while this car was never offered with an automatic it was one of the only affordable cars ever available with a sequential manual transmission which is basically like a regular manual except it has an automated clutch pedal similar systems were found in the ferrari 360 in the ferrari f430 with their f1 transmission and yet here it was in a 25 000 toyota anyway nobody remembers this car they remember the celica and of course the supra and the older mr2s and everybody knows the scion fr-s and the toyota 86 but the mr2 spider has been largely forgotten but today i'm going to help you remember it i'm going to take you on a tour of this car and i'm going to show you all of its interesting quirks and cool features including both cubic feet of cargo space then i'm going to get it out on the road and see how it drives and then i'm going to give it a dug score and for more of my thoughts on the mr2 spider click the link below to visit autotrader.com oversteer now i'm going to start with the part you're probably most interested in and that would be the mid engine specifically how to access it it's actually kind of interesting you pull a little latch located on the floor on the driver's foot well and it opens up the engine cover and back now the interesting thing about that is that the little diagram on that little latch is just the trunk diagram that toyota uses for the trunk latch and every other vehicle that they make they just reused it here they figured why not it opens the thing in back we don't need to change the picture ah toyota forever efficient and practical so then you're thinking all right well where is the release to get into the front which of course is where the trunk is in this car well that is located in the glove box it's a little lever that you pull you pull it and it opens up the trunk that also has the same picture of basically a hood opening in every other toyota and in fact i suspect that little lever is the same one they mount under the driver's foot well in a lot of other toyota models again i guarantee you the toyota engineers were like well why bother making a different latch we've already got one it works but here's where things get a little bit strange if you want to open up the engine cover after you've already released it from the inside you can just walk up to it and open it right up like a trunk however if you want to open up the trunk after you've already released it from the inside you have to walk up to it and open it with a latch like an engine cover now obviously the reason toyota did that is because you need a latch in the front cover for the trunk in this case so that it doesn't fly up in your face where you're driving down the highway but nonetheless it is unusual to see an engine cover without like a hood latch anyway opening it up here you go this is the toyota 1z engine it's the same engine that was also used in the toyota celica gt the base level celica of course the celica gts also had the 2zz engine which was the one that was also found in the lotus elise this engine is similar to the one that was just used in a lot of different toyotas including the corolla but it's a little bit more powerful and here of course it's mounted behind the seats which is a lot different than the other toyotas now there's nothing particularly noteworthy when you open up the engine cover it's about what you'd expect but there is one other particularly noteworthy engine cover opening detail worth mentioning if you go and look on the floor the driver's format where you open the engine cover you will see that there is a little keyhole and it says lock and unlock if you stick your key in there you can lock those latches from being opened that's the fuel door and the engine cover now this features in a lot of different toyota products and obviously the original intent was so that you could lock out a valet for instance from being able to get into your trunk but in this car it uses the same mechanism but it doesn't lock your trunk it locks your engine cover so if you drop this off at a valet and you wanted to lock that then you could make sure the valet didn't have access to your engine now of course toyota has thought of this remember how i mentioned that the little lever to unlatch the trunk is in the glove box well naturally toyota allows you to lock the glove box as well so you can keep the valet out of your trunk and your engine if you want now there are a couple of unusual items inside the trunk the most unusual by far is that on the little plastic cover to the actual trunk it says midship runabout now like i mentioned before that was why this car is called mr2 midship runabout but what a bizarre thing to print in giant font on the plastic trunk cover i absolutely was not expecting it to be up there but if there's ever been any debate on what mr stands for well now that debate is solved now the other interesting thing about that plastic trunk cover when you open it up you'll notice that it's kind of a flimsy piece and it'll just close right back down but toyota has thought of this as well they provide you with like a little cord and you can take the end of the core there's a little plastic piece and you could hook it to the roof of the trunk lid cover and then it will stay put and you can do whatever you wish inside the trunk which of course isn't much because this is where the car's two cubic feet of cargo room lie you will see that there really isn't much room in there for anything that is the factory placement of the spare tire and you'll note that it steals a lot of your two cubic feet of cargo volume but i guess it's better than having no spare tire at all but the mr2 spider isn't done with storage just yet take a look behind the front passenger seat i folded it forward and you can see there is a little storage cubby behind the seat if you fold the driver seat forward you can see the exact same thing there is another little panel that covers a storage compartment back here in fact it's just one giant storage compartment and when i say giant i am speaking in mr2 spider terms now before i show you the quirks of that storage compartment take a look at the panels covering that storage compartment and you will see that there are locks on those as well so if you're driving your mr2 spider and you've got something valuable in it and you don't want it to be stolen but you also don't want to lock your doors because you're worried someone will just slash your top in a high crime area you can just leave your valuable item inside one of the storage compartments that locks as a result there are six total locks on this vehicle there's two on the doors there's two more on the rear storage compartment there's one in the engine cover lock for the valet in the driver's foot well and then there's another one on the glove box one interesting item on the locks and the panels behind the seats however like i mentioned before these panels open to one large storage area but you can lock them individually so theoretically you could lock one and forget to lock the other and you could think your valuables are safe but someone could just easily get in the other side which you've left unlocked now let's talk about quirks of this storage compartment if you fold the seats forward you look back there you can see it is reasonably well sized but there are a couple of interesting things about it one is that the little plastic panels at the end can be removed and if you remove them toyota claims you can fit a set of golf clubs in this car to me that seems suspect perhaps toyota is talking about mini golf clubs now another interesting item in that luggage compartment if you look at the very edges of the compartment you will see a little warning label on either side the top half is in japanese the bottom half is in english and it warns you not to put any sharp luggage inside the storage compartment because it could pierce the drain sack which could of course cause leaks so you're allowed to store stuff back there as long as it isn't too sharp next up another interesting item above those little storage compartments behind the seats that would be the wind deflector look at this you just pull it up and then it pops up and deflects wind the owner tells me it does have some benefit when it's up even though it doesn't really look like it would if you don't want the wind deflector anymore if you put the top back up and you don't need your wind deflected you just push it back down and then it goes away but it's there a nice built-in wind deflector next up we must discuss convertible top operation which is actually pretty easy it's so easy that you could do it at a stop light if you're just sitting there and it starts to rain first there's a little thing here that says pull you pull it and that sort of releases the top then you just kind of grab it and do one of these now the most interesting part of the top operation is the latches which are like angry they basically clamp down and then pull the top closed you can watch it in action here and now with the angry clamps lined up we have clamp one and clamp two and now the top is closed pretty easy for those of you who insist on me also lowering the top first you push little buttons on top of the clamps that unclamps them and then it is as easy as just pushing the top back there we go and now it's down you could also do that at a stop light if it suddenly becomes an unexpectedly sunny day next up moving into the mr2 spider there are of course a couple of interesting quirks in here i'm going to start with storage now i mentioned that there are a bunch of lockable storage items throughout the cabin but there's also one that can't be locked and it's on top of the dashboard which is an odd place for a storage compartment but it's there just in case you have little items that you need to store that don't need to be locked away also interesting in the middle of the dashboard the center control stack in this car is kind of strange unlike most sports cars that have sort of the center control stack that flows into the gear shift lever in one giant piece this thing the center control stack goes all the way to the floor like in a minivan and so there's a space on the floor between the center control stack and the gear lever which is very unusual in sports cars with small interiors like this and speaking of odd design touches in the interior of this car back to that center control stack i have to discuss the cup holders you can't build the car without cup holders and so this has them although really in name only they're about the flimsiest little joke cup holders you'll ever see but it has them just in case you need to transport a cup in an emergency now moving on to the left of the steering wheel there are some very unusual items one is the lock unlock button which is only placed on the left of the steering wheel the passenger has no access to locking or unlocking the car except for their own door but much weirder than that is the lock unlock button for the windows i've never really understood why two-seater cars have a lock unlock button for the windows you really hate the passenger that much you don't want them rolling down the window but in this car it's even stranger because the window controls are in the middle by the parking brake so if you lock the windows you can still roll down your driver's window but the passenger can't roll down their passenger window i say this is strange because if the passenger was annoying you by rolling down the windows they could just reach two extra inches over and roll down your driver's window which isn't locked out by the lock unlock button i have no idea why they bothered with a lock unlock window button in this car but there it is also interesting in this interior the sun visors are very very small they can't possibly provide any real shielding from the sun they also don't detach which means you can't move them over to the side if the sun is on the side and they don't include a mirror these are the most basic sun visors you'll ever see they do have the federally mandated airbag warning label on them maybe that's why toyota bothered to include them at all next up moving on to the glovebox and specifically the owner's manual there are a couple of interesting items in the owner's manual primarily relating to the depiction of this car take a look for example the page on towing you will see a restriction against having the car towed or against using the car to tow which i don't think anyone would try to do with their mr2 spider but don't you just like those labels that show the mr2 spider they're not just some generic car toyota went to the trouble of actually drawing the mr2 spider towing to tell you not to do it one item i do have to bring up though from the owner's manual is on page 169 under a section labeled checking the battery condition where toyota tells you which tool to use if you want to check the battery condition the tools they suggest are warm water and baking soda now i gotta wonder which toyota attorney exactly signed off on this owner's manual that went into public hands saying that you should use warm water and baking soda to check the condition of your battery that's kind of an odd little item that i wasn't really expecting to find in there next up moving on to the scheduled maintenance guide now first i want to talk about the cover of the scheduled maintenance guide look at these people first off the guy with the bike he's thrilled i mean he's just having a time of his life but take a look at the smaller picture the guy in the office he's mad he's angry that is the face of a man who does not own a toyota mr2 spider we got to put him in this thing he wouldn't be so angry he'd get out of that office and he would have the wind in his well whatever but forget about the pictures on the front for a second turn to page 14 in the scheduled maintenance guide and you'll see one of the coolest pictures i've ever found in a warranty information or maintenance information or owner's manual that would be a toyota parts department from around the time this car is being made i guess a few years earlier if you look closely i'm not sure if you can see it on camera but there is a front end mask for a supra do you see that and then it also looks like a front end mask for a celica that is what the toyota parts counter looked like in like 1996 and they've included that picture in here so we will never forget one other interesting item worth mentioning if you go through the owner's manual booklets you will find one piece that is an owner's manual just for the keyless entry system i don't even know it's a it's a fob with an unlock button and a lock button on it what else do you need what do you need an owner's manual for it's isn't that self-explanatory how could there be a manual for this now moving on to the exterior there are only a couple of interesting quirks out here one of which though is the headlights which are just unusually massive for a car this tiny look how big these headlights are they're like the size of my own head in fact the headlights and the wheels seem to be roughly the same size and so those are the quirks and features of the mr2 spider the tiny little mid engine 2c impractical 4-cylinder sports car made by the same company who was building the giant kid-hauling off-roader v8 powered land cruiser at the same time anyway now it's time to get behind the wheel and see how it drives all right driving the mr2 spider the unloved version of the mr2 i gotta drive with the top down it's like 70 degrees here in the dallas fort worth area first impression it feels like toyota's take on a convertible and a sporty convertible everything is just nice and well put together and all that nothing is extremely luxurious or special or anything like that but it's just looks like it's going to last for a long time looks durable clutch is very very very very easy uh the shifter is very easy too easy to put where you want it's not like harsh or weird or you know it takes a little bit of some work to drive like the s2000 you got to be smart know what you're doing this thing is just plug and play if you know how to drive three pedals flooring it i mean it moves but not tremendously quickly or with any crazy speed it's uh you know horsepower was not this car's strong suit the owner told me some people swap in that two zzz toyota motor from the lotus elise with celica gts and they put it in one of these and i think that would really liven things up a bit because from where i'm sitting before it i mean it works but could certainly improve it's a shame actually because this was kind of a cool idea a mid-engine convertible everybody wanted convert rear-wheel drive convertibles like a miata mid-engine makes it better in terms of physics i mean you sort of balance the weight in the middle of the car as opposed to sticking it out over one of the wheels like most cars and yet it just could have been a little faster the ride quality is rougher than i was expecting it is it's not jarring but it's a little harsh i'm surprised at how precise the steering is uh the car the steering is good and the handling is tremendously responsive the moment you start to turn the wheel the car turns there is absolutely zero on center vagueness it's actually one of the more precise steering experiences that i felt it's nice to be in an open car top down windows up being that guy sitting at stoplight here looking around sort of reinforces my feeling that this is just a toyota's take on a sports car everything is just this durable toyota plastic it's like a tacoma but a little you know mid-engine tiny sports car it's kind of hilarious and the ride is drawing over those lane line bumps but i will say i'm impressed with the handling the steering is very precise the handling is predictable and it's just quick it's really really quick you can just zip around corners in this thing if only the the you know the acceleration matched the handling quickness one thing i will say people are always asking me well how well do you fit in these cars which is why i'm always giving my height i will say this one was tough uh most modern cars i don't have a problem fitting in people complain oh i got in a boxer and i didn't fit it's like yeah but you did fit it was just tight this car is really tight just about the tightest i've been in i think with this car i'm more impressed how i thought i'd be without handles it handles much better than i expected but it actually accelerates slower than i expected i figured 138 horsepower in a car this size it would be pretty pretty spry it doesn't feel pretty spry it's fun to have the top down and it's fun to have the engine in the middle that's where it's most enjoyable and exciting you combine those two things it's the perfect car they just sort of stop short of making this the perfect car by just not quite offering as much horsepower as maybe they should and so that's the toyota mr2 spider on paper it's kind of easy to see why people have forgotten about this car for one thing it was a soft top convertible not a true coupe so a lot of people think that means it isn't a real focused sports car it was also slower than the mr2 that came out before it which ended production in 1995. also the styling is a bit soft it's impractical and it only has a four-cylinder but come on folks this car is cool it's a mid-engine rear-wheel drive two-seat manual transmission sports car made by a company known for reliability and easy repairs what's not to love anyway agree with me or not at least now you remember the mr2 spider and now it's time to give it a dug score starting with the weekend categories and styling i wouldn't say the mr2 spider is beautiful but it's certainly fine and it gets a 5 out of 10. acceleration is slow it does 0 to 60 in 7 point something seconds and it gets a 1 out of 10. handling is sharp not quite on par with the s2000 but surprisingly close and it gets a 7 out of 10. fun factor is reasonably high but it'd be higher if there was more power as it stands it gets a 6 out of 10. cool factor is surprisingly average these aren't exactly head turners it gets only a 5 out of 10 for a total weekend score of 24 out of 50. next up are the daily categories starting with features it's pretty basic and it earns a 3 out of 10. comfort is next and that's not a strong point the mr2 spider has an unusually harsh ride and a tight interior and it gets a 3 out of 10 which is an especially low score for a non-exotic car but this car isn't exactly a paragon of comfort quality however is good this car is reliable and the interior is durable though it's not exactly upscale so it stops short of a very high score and earns a seven out of ten practicality is extremely low but two seats and some storage space earns it a two out of ten finally there's value these are easy to find for under 10 grand and that strikes me as a good number for a reliable rear wheel drive midigen convertible sports car even if it's a bit on the slow side and it gets a 7 out of 10 for a total daily score of 22 out of 50. add it up and the doug score is 46 out of 100 and here's how it compares to a couple of other rear wheel drive little convertibles the mr2 spider isn't as fun or as daily drivable as the s2000 or 124 spider but it's also quite a bit cheaper [Music]

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 1,778,823

Keywords: toyota mr2 spyder, mr2 spyder, toyota mr2, mr2, third-generation mr2, mr2 spyder review, toyota mr2 spyder review, toyota mr2 review, mr2 review, toyota convertible, miata competitor, toyota spyder, toyota mr-s, toyota mr-s review, doug demuro, demuro

Id: lW0v505p60U

Length: 21min 30sec (1290 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 05 2018