If it hasn’t become obvious by now, I want to drive everything. Or at least everything that interests me.
I’ve yet to realize the dream of becoming an automotive journalist, instead sating my desire to share experiences by doing my best impersonation of an automotive blogger. The difference being that, while some of the folks I follow and admire have the opportunity to snatch the keys to whatever they’re covering, I have to buy my way into the driver’s seat.
For a time I could pop in to a local dealership, feign enough interest to pull a test drive, and a quick spin was enough to quench the urge to try something new. But new now means something other than 3 miles in a delivery mileage Mustang. And drive means drive. It means coming into your favorite corner on the brakes and seeing how the car rotates. Or feeling at what point the front end pushes before you pop off the throttle and adjust the tail. Or welding that throttle to the damn floorboard and catching the slide on the way out.
It means testing the car in a more…intimate setting.
Which is how I found myself as the largely unenthused owner of a third-generation Toyota MR2, known to the odd anorak as a ZZW30.
Weighing barely over a ton, soft-topped, and powered by a mid-mounted 138hp inline-four, you could hardly ask for anything more. But more there was, in the projector headlights (available from this model year on) that actually made a difference in the un-lit canyons, surprisingly supportive seats, and a slew of TRD bits installed by a previous owner that appreciably tightened up the shifter and chassis.
And oh. That chassis, baby.
It’s hard not to miss my AW11 MR2. For the while it was mine it provided some amazing drives. The steering was slow, but feel-some and accurate for how worn the related bits were. And for all the belly-aching parroted by those uncomfortable with the traits of a rear-mid-mounted motor, it was an absolutely delightful dance partner. You could come into a corner with a little middle pedal to shift the weight forward, steering bit by bit, until the occasion came to let the 4A-GE breathe, full throttle, all the way to the next corner.
I’ve yet to drive an SW20 MR2, but the general consensus regards it as an entirely different driving experience. Much more powerful than the AW, but also larger, more hefty, and less of the featherweight fighter its father was. If that’s true, then the ZZW30 was a return to form. To my hands, feet, and backside, the MK3 MR2 is a fitting follow-up to the first generation, rather than the second. Light on its feet, willing to rotate, and ready to party.
In much the same fashion, you could come into a corner, set the nose with the communicative brake pedal, and find your way down the gears with the mechanical feeling TRD short-shifter. Soon you’d find your way out of the corner, motor revving freely to its Miata-aping redline. But it was here at the fuel-cut that my enthusiasm for the Spyder would wan.
The heart of many a base model Celica, Corolla, and Pontiac Vibe, the 1ZZ-FE inline-four is described in many ways that don’t start with “inspire” and end with “-ing.” Which is not to say it’s a bad motor. Similar to Honda’s K-Series, the ZZ-Series motors from Toyota were a line of all-alloy, chain-driven four-pots of various displacements and outputs. Lightweight, great on gas, and almost maintenance-free. Curiously, the high-output 2ZZ-GE version of this architecture could be found in such disparate vehicles as the Toyota Matrix XRS and the Series 2 Lotus Elise. But Toyota’s concurrently offered roadster had the honor of plodding along with twenty percent less horsepower than either of those cars.
Of course, being forty horsepower down isn’t the end of the world. Especially taking into account that the 1ZZ makes near the same amount of torque, and at a lower RPM. If anything it should add to the experience, requiring the driver to keep on it to make progress. But there is something to be said about the noise it makes.
Full of chain rattle and the strained thrum of a 1.8L motor originally meant for some college kid’s first victim, the 1ZZ soundtrack seems at odds with the rest of the MR2’s driving experience. Sure, it requires revs to produce movement, and a slight burble from behind accompanies your chase to the redline. But the overall cacophony of grocery-getter trills makes a mockery of hustling through switchbacks, and you find yourself wincing as the tach sweeps toward the 6400RPM power peak.
One of the few things more bothersome than the song of the MR2 Spyder is the vetting process for engine swaps in California, colloquially referred to as BAR-ing. So while many mid-engine Spyder aficionados with similar complaints have swapped to the more inspiring 2ZZ, certifying that update or living with a non-certified swap was not high on my list of desirables. Facing that, my long-term test came to a close.
So off it went, to a friend who found the Spyder is quite the competitive ProSolo weapon. And, as a testament that my pickiness has little bearing on how good a car is, last I checked he was gathering trophies in it.