MR2

Why it exists

By the time Toyota replaced the first MR2, the affordable mid-engined car was close to extinct. Grassroots Motorsports points out that the Pontiac Fiero and the Fiat X1/9 had both failed to reach the 1990s, which left the MR2 alone in its price class. Toyota answered with a bigger, heavier and more grown-up car rather than a lighter one. Consumer Guide measured about 1 cubic foot of space in the nose and 5.5 in the trunk, and Hagerty Media puts the Turbo at nearly 2,900 lb, 400 lb more than the heaviest first-generation trim. The supercharger of the late first-generation car was dropped in favor of a turbocharger. Hagerty credits Dan Gurney with helping Toyota's engineers tune the handling of the first two generations. The MR2 Wiki, an owner-run reference, repeats a claim that Yamaha assembled the cars for Toyota at about 2,000 a month; it hedges with "apparently," and no manufacturer source fetched here confirms it.

The US car, 1991-1992

Consumer Guide says the SW20 skipped the 1990 model year and arrived in spring 1990 as an early 1991 model; a member of the MR2 Owners Club forum working through Toyota-derived sales data dates the start to March 1990. The base car used the 2.2-liter four from the Celica GT and GT-S, rated at 130 hp; MR2 Bible identifies it as the 5S-FE, used in the MR2 only in the US. The Turbo used the 3S-GTE from the Celica All-Trac Turbo, turbocharged and intercooled, at 200 hp and 200 lb-ft. A five-speed manual was standard, and the four-speed automatic came only without the turbo. The T-bar roof was optional on either car, with a pop-up removable moonroof as the alternative, and Europe never got the Turbo at all, Hagerty notes. Grassroots Motorsports ran its own test in its March/April 1991 issue, weighed the Turbo at 2,758 lb, and rated its throttle response among the best of any turbo engine it had driven.

The 1993 revision

The early cars earned a reputation for snap oversteer: lift mid-corner and the tail comes around, and an overcorrection sends it the other way. Toyota's answer arrived in March 1992 as an early 1993 model, per Consumer Guide: lower ride height, higher-rate springs and shock absorbers, stiffer bushings, longer rear toe-control arms and wider 15-inch tires. Hagerty adds bigger brakes and a viscous limited-slip differential, which the MR2 Wiki lists as a Turbo option alongside revised second- and third-gear synchronizers; Grassroots Motorsports calls the new Turbo synchronizers dual-cone. Consumer Guide and Grassroots Motorsports both say every 1993 Turbo came with the T-bar roof, while the MR2 Wiki counts approximately 10 hardtop Turbos among 2,917 US sales that year. Some journalists thought the fix neutered the car; Toyota said the changes were for drivers whose reflexes were not those of Formula 1 drivers, as Hagerty quotes it.

The last two years

A passenger airbag joined the driver airbag for 1994, and the base car gained standard air conditioning and a one-piece rear spoiler. The 1995 base T-bar car added power windows and locks as standard. Japan got a 242 hp 3S-GTE from 1994, and MR2 Bible is emphatic that the US Turbo never did. Prices kept climbing: JD Power records an original MSRP of $18,228 for a 1991 Turbo and $28,668 for a 1995 Turbo, and Consumer Guide blames escalating prices and insurance premiums for the collapse in sales. The MR2 Wiki counts 908 US sales in the penultimate period and about 356 in the last, and says the Turbo was not offered in California-emissions states at the end. Toyota withdrew the car from the US after 1995.

Before and after: AW11 and Spyder

The first-generation AW11 was smaller, lighter, offered with a supercharger in 1989, and far more numerous: the calendar-year table reposted on the MR2 Owners Club forum puts AW-series production for the United States and Canada at 96,666, against 33,111 for the SW series. The third-generation car, which Consumer Guide notes revived the name as a midengine Spyder convertible as the new century began, weighed about 700 lb less than an SW20 Turbo, per Hagerty, and has its own page.

The problems cluster around age, packaging and the chassis rather than the engines. Water: T-bar seals leak, and the foam insulator behind the seats rusts the sills from within. Cooling: on the Turbo the buried coolant hoses are an engine-out job, and MR2 Bible flags the copper coolant pipes above the fuel tank as a critical item because they crack and leak onto the tank. Transaxle: synchronizer wear on the 2-3 shift, improved but not cured by the 1993 Turbo gearbox. Steering: Consumer Guide lists a power steering pump relay fault on 1991-1995 cars that can make assist excessive, and MR2 Bible describes the relay cutting assist intermittently. Idle and oil: TVIS actuator and vacuum line leaks cause rough idle, and the distributor base O-ring weeps oil, per MR2 Bible. Electrical: Consumer Guide records 1991 cars with water in the wiring harness corroding terminals and killing the dome light, door speakers or radio. Recalls: NHTSA lists one campaign for the 1991 model year, 91V223000, replacing a steering wheel and airbag that exceeded the 60g thorax criterion in crash tests, and returns none for the 1993 or 1995 model years; the MR2 Wiki also lists a 1991 air conditioning expansion valve campaign that the NHTSA query does not return. Handling: snap oversteer is the leading cause of attrition, per Hagerty Media, softened rather than removed by the 1993 revision.

Rust starts where it cannot be seen. Grassroots Motorsports reports that a foam sound insulator low in the body pocket behind the seats holds water and rots the sills and rockers from the inside; reproduction rockers exist because this is the most common rust area. T-bar cars leak, and a dry one is the exception, per Grassroots Motorsports; MR2 Bible calls drips at the seals very common as the rubber ages. On a Turbo, the coolant hoses buried in the engine bay, known to owners as the Hoses from Hell, are essentially an engine-out job according to Hagerty Media, so a record of their replacement carries weight. Transaxle synchronizers crunch on the 2-3 shift, and the 1993 dual-cone upgrade did not end it; Red Line MT-90 fluid is the usual first remedy before a rebuild. Hagerty calls the car extremely reliable and the engines bulletproof, but says a clean, unmodified example is hard to find and many were spun by inexperienced owners, so accident history and originality separate cars more than mileage does. Colors and paint codes, from the MR2 Wiki alone: Aquamarine Pearl (742) for 1991-1992 only; Nautical Blue (8H3), Black (202), Super White I (043), Crimson Red (3J6), Signal Yellow (567) and Steel Mist Gray (187) from launch; Blue (8J2) and Turquoise Pearl (746) for 1993 only; Super Red (3E5) and Super White (040) from 1993; Solar Yellow (576), Dark Green Pearl (6M1) and Tropical Blue (8B6) later. Maintenance and restoration costs: no US source fetched publishes a repair or restoration price. Grassroots Motorsports says mechanical parts remain available, colored interior trim has long been discontinued, and body panels are hard to source.

As of September 2026, the most specific US values fetched for the SW20 come from JD Power, which lists a 1991 Turbo coupe at $15,100 low retail, $27,100 average retail and $33,200 high retail; a 1995 Turbo at $14,550, $25,400 and $31,300; and a 1991 base coupe at $9,600, $18,400 and $23,300. classic.com's all-generation MR2 page gives an average price of $17,406 as of September 2026 across the AW11, SW20 and Spyder combined; its SW20 submarket page was not retrieved, so no classic.com figure specific to this car appears here. Hagerty Media's SW20 market article, written after January 2020 and not current, put a #3 non-turbo at about $8,000 and a concours Turbo at up to $35,000, a #2 1993 Turbo at $22,500 against $12,300 for a #2 base car, and a #2 post-revision Turbo at $23,800 against $18,800 for a pre-revision car. Consumer Guide's used-car page still prints an undated good-condition range of $1,200 to $4,200, which no other source fetched comes near. Modified cars trade in their own market: The Truth About Cars featured a 156,000-mile 1991 Turbo with turbo, intercooler and suspension upgrades at an $18,000 asking price, undated. The sources agree on direction if not on numbers: Turbo over base, and an unmodified car over a modified one.