1991 MR2 Grows Up and Announces Its Arrival With a Roar

By PAUL DEAN

Feb. 9, 1990 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Toyota MR2 always looked as if it should be sold in pairs. One for each foot. Size 9 1/2.

But those were the 1985 through ’90 MR2s, when the car had baby teeth.

Now it is the 1991 Mister Two, an adult car with claws.

It is longer, wider, taller and much, much quicker than its progenitor in the two-seat, mid-engined class that first began jeopardizing our disposable income in the mid-’70s.

Gone is flatness and wedginess and that awful image of a driver’s rump scuffing asphalt. Now one can sit proud and purposeful in this post-graduate sports car, not hunched and a little apologetic while staring up at everybody else’s wheel covers.

To build such balance and ride--in a move that makes one wonder why Toyota didn’t think of it before--development engineers reached into their competition division and pulled out consummate race driver and contagious nice guy Dan Gurney.

They gave driver-builder Gurney--president of All American Racers of Santa Ana--a new and improved prototype MR2 fitted with their optimum arrangement of struts, shock absorbers, springs and sway bars.

Gurney spent four days thrashing the car at Willow Springs International Raceway near Rosamond and worked the suspension into what he thought would satisfy the tight turns of our aspirations.

And that’s how the MR2 became a fledged, exciting . . . well, a boot to all our senses of adventure.

Before upsizing, the MR2 wasn’t the only car on the road with size suggestive of a medium-width loafer. Even when motoring as fast as its 75-horsepower engine allowed, the Bertone-bodied Fiat X/19, another affordable, mid-engined sports car, still managed to look more like a Converse Court Star. Then came the two-place Pontiac Fiero offering laces as a factory option.

Both were pretty little plastic things. Also pretty awful. Insurance companies didn’t like them. Especially the Fiero, with its reputation gradually reduced to scraps by a series of engine fires, Ralph Nader and last month’s General Motors recall of 244,000 four-cylinder Fieros. That’s every one on the road today.

Last year, the 16-year-old X/19 (the best thing about the car was that designation smacking of aeronautical research and development by Chuck Yeager) died from its double-dose of low power and poor quality. The Fiero--despite some late suspension implants and a six-cylinder engine transplant that made things quicker and much cooler--couldn’t escape the smoldering shadow of those poor early models. Production was cancelled in 1988.

Only the MR2 (that stands for M id-engined, R ear-drive, 2 -seater) has survived.

A cadre of cads continues to wonder why.

* It is a two-seater in an eon where social conscience dictates ride-sharing and van pools.

* The MR2 is a mid-engined car (the superior stability of such a mounting costing dearly in reduced trunk space) when Ferrari is the only other manufacturer in the world rooted to that configuration.

* Insurance companies continue to regard turbocharged sports cars as a risk commensurate with brain transplants, shake shingle roofs in Topanga Canyon and delivering gelignite by pogo stick.

“But I see the MR2 as an affordable exotic,” explained one Toyota spokesman. “It’s there for fun while offering a modicum of practicality for day-to-day use.”

Noted another representative: “It is a car for people with more enthusiasm than money.”

In tighter perspective: If you understand the Miata, the Chevrolet Corvette and the belief that in serious times, a partial dedication to personal amusement constitutes significant practicality, then the MR2 stands as an exemplar of high logic.

And with a base price spreading from $14,500 for the unturbocharged MR2 to $18,500 for the turbo-torpedo, it’s certainly a bargain compared to the dollar-performance ratio of the Porsche 944, Mazda RX7 and Nissan 300ZX.

The MR2 will be in showrooms next month, and, visually, it is a smasher.

The rear, three-quarter view shows off a louvered deck above the mid-engine, and back pillars start an arc that contains a curving rear window. The nostalgia you sense will be for a Dino Ferrari.

The front moves smartly down and away from the windshield; just how smartly is apparent when sitting in the car. From here, there is no hood there. But as with driving a Formula car, the absence of frontal mass is the best design yet for instinctive, optimum placement of a car in traffic or through a corner.

Straked intakes ahead of the rear wheel are fully functional--one directing air to the cleaner; the other for the intercooler that chills the breeze (thus increasing its density) for more effective turbocharging.

Fog lights built into the front grille are an identifier of the turbocharged MR2 and a dignified performance touch. So are the tailpipe megaphones. The pop up headlights, sadly, add about as much elegance as ketchup on a cummerbund.

Inside, the car is cozy, not cramped, with ergonomics that allow driver responses to be stirred, not shaken. Red needles on black dials; a curved, hooded dash, and a gear shift with the short throw of a video game form a layout that these days has become almost generic.

We found the leather seats no great fit for even the contours of shoulders that would barely challenge Anjelica Huston.

Forward vision is slightly hampered by the upper line of a windshield that drops unexpectedly close to eyebrow level. Also, there are visual distractions of curved glass, heavy pillars, headrests and even the rear spoiler for those of us who like to chuck a quick glance over the shoulder to check the blind spot before changing lanes.

One must also bear in mind that this is a pure sports car, and that requires undeniable driver/passenger compromises.

Front and rear trunk space, although enlarged from last year, remain something of a squeeze with about the same cubic footage (6.5) of an efficiency apartment refrigerator. Do not expect to slide in an out of the MR2 because ingress and egress is better expressed as donning and doffing.

The mechanical high of the MR2 is a new and improved turbocharger that winds up earlier and faster to reduce turbo lag--that uncomfortable delay when most turbochargers are roused from rest and take their time answering instructions from our right feet. Meanwhile, the guy in the Mazda pickup is a length in front.

But by riding the clutch a smidge, by holding power from the MR2’s Celica engine around 3,000 r.p.m., this turbocharger starts spinning soon after the get-go. In second gear, it is all spooled up and blowing a gale, and the little car is proceeding at a pace that will smudge your mascara.

Then there is the handling.

Among imagists, it is known as point and squirt. One points the car into a corner or curve. One adds a firm squirt of gas pedal. The car dives in and through the corner beneath perfect control that one may presume is more yours than mechanical.

Among those who prefer comparisons, the steering feel and overall balance of the vehicle (thanks to Gurney’s input) is as grand as anything found on Nissan’s 300ZX, the Lotus Elan or any Porsche--and at the mass production level, they are about as good as it gets.

In a rear-drive car, the control tendency obviously is to over-steer. But the tail-wagging is quite predictable and eminently correctable by a steering twitch here, a power adjustment there.

The MR2 comes as a T-top or coupe. The unturbocharged version (automatic or manual transmission) contains a four-cylinder, 2.2-liter engine, while the Turbo (manual transmission only) is fitted with a 2-liter. Safety equipment includes a driver-side air bag as standard, but an anti-lock braking system is optional.

Our test car was a prototype that came with caveats from Toyota. The gearbox will be a growler. There will be some rear end harmonics, possibly from exhaust plumbing. The turbocharger has a whine.

Credit all these write-ups, Toyota explained, on a certain Mr. Gurney who spent several days trying to kill this particular car at Willow Springs.

That it survived at all is a testimonial to the MR2’s basic design and inherent durability.

Yet it really would be a shame to fix that turbo whine.

When it whistles, it actually makes you feel that you could be at Le Mans and just might be giving Dan Gurney a run for his francs.

1991 TOYOTA MR2 TURBO

COST: Base $18,500. As tested $21,000.

ENGINE: Four-cylinders, 2-liter twin-cam, with 16 valves and intercooled turbocharger producing 200 horsepower.

TYPE: Two-seater, rear-drive sports car.

PERFORMANCE: * 0-60 m.p.h., as tested, 6.1 seconds.

* Top speed, during track testing, 145 m.p.h.

* Fuel economy, EPA city-highway, 20-27 m.p.g.

CURB WEIGHT: 2,800 pounds.