For $5,000, They Call Me MR 2

If you were to mash up Pixar's Cars and George Romero's Night of the Living Dead into a zombie carpocalypse, you could potentially populate it with Toyotas, so lifeless are most of the company's products. An exception to that stereotype, today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe Supercharged MR2 would be the life of the party, but will its price kill the deal?

Some people are dog lovers, while others favor cats. At six figures and having been Nip- Tucked beyond redemption, yesterday's wildly custom '64 E-Type turned out to be both a cat and a dog, at least that's what its 65% Crack Pipe loss implied. Sure it covered both traditional pet bases, but it seemed a companion few of you would be willing to adopt.

Relationships are hard work. This supercharged and t-roofed 1989 MR2 is up for sale because the current owner's girlfriend refuses to ride in it due to its lack of airbags. She must really be something for him to choose to dump the car instead of her. Or perhaps he's just totally whipped.

Full disclosure here, this MR2 is being offered up by a fellow Jalop. Themish pinged me the other day and asked if I thought his car would make a good candidate for NPOCP, as he had put it up on the bay of ees. That made for a tough choice as I didn't necessarily want to make it look like offering him free advertising for his car, and I also kind of felt bad about throwing him to you wolves. After considering the fact that this MR2 is a pretty cool candidate that pushes all the right buttons, plus the $100 PayPal transfer, I thought, what the hell?

It's almost hard to believe, but when Toyota introduced the MR2, way back in 1984, the Fiat X1/9 was still being sold here in the U.S.. Sure, it was marketed as a Bertone and was sold through Italian delis, but who would have imagined that Toyota would want to spar with that long in the tooth Fiat? Turns out it was much of a fight, the X1/9, bruised and demoralized, departing from these shores a full year before this pumped-up Mister hit even the beach.

Sporting a T-roof, 5-speed stick and fewer than 110,000 miles on its odo, this MR2 has pretty much everything you could want in a mid engine Toyota. It also has its world rocked by a supercharged and intercooled version of the 4A-GZE four cylinder, rather than the more common un-pumped edition. That's 1,587-ccs and 145-bhp to you, thank you very much. The supercharger is belt-driven and actuated by an electro-mechanical clutch, so it doesn't run all the time and can called into duty when needed, just like on Mad Max's Interceptor.

This one is claimed to have had the timing belt done at 98K and a to have had a clutch thrown in at 50. Other updated stuff includes the brakes and tires with a decent amount of waffle still left on them, plus a factory Toyota alarm. One can only imagine what that last item does – probably when triggered it has a voice that shouts -Oh my god, what are you doing? What's wrong with you, who steals a Toyota? and then falls asleep.

But you won't fall asleep driving this MR2, and you won't likely fall through its floorboards either because Themish says it's now 100% free of road rot, having made multiple visits to the electric needle room. You can bet your ass that means the paint isn't exactly showroom fresh, and there is an admission in the ad of rattle cans being employed at one time, but what the hell, that's nothing a quick audience with the Earl of Scheib can't fix. Or, maybe you'd want to stick with the A-10-ness of its current grey with genital warts appearance. Inside, things look a lot better, as long as you don't take issue with the MR2's dashboard styling which looks like it was done by an epileptic while watching Pokemon. The lemur-pattern seats still look great, and there's no pesky airbag to block your vision when you feel the need to ram somebody for a second time.

Now here's the part where it gets a little awkward, as we're going to talk about how much scratch Themish is asking for this rough and ready MR2. Okay, I'm done being awkward, he's asking $5,000. That's mad MX5 money, and those cars have fully lowering tops and don't look like a Decepticon's dookie. But Misters need love too, and there is a lot to like about this one. Because of that, maybe it's priced to sell?

What do you think, is this Jalop's Jalopy worth $5,000 of your imaginary cash – or a real buyer's real money? Or, does that price make this MR a miss?

You decide!

eBay or go here if the ad disappears.

Apologies to Themish for implying he was whipped.

Help me out with NPOCP. Click here to send a me a tip, and remember to include your commenter handle.