The Mk1 Toyota MR2 is the lost Group B hero we should celebrate, and here's why

Fun fact: back in 1985 Toyota looked at turning the MR2 into a Group B rally car.  A bunch of prototypes were built just in time for the legendarily wild series to be cancelled. I didn’t think I could love the original MR2 more. And then I discovered this little nugget.

And here’s another: Lotus did the chassis setup work for the original MR2. When I learned that, it all made sense, because this is a little sweetie to drive. But before we get into that, here’s why this boxy little coupe means so much to me.

Back at uni in the mid-1990s I used to write a column for the student rag about cars. But getting your mates to let you have a quick go in their Nova/Fiesta/mum’s rattly Volvo would raise awkward questions about insurance, so I used to head off to the used car dealers of nearby Stoke-on-Trent and see what I could rustle up.

Photography: Dean Smith

A Fiat Coupe Turbo was memorable. Mainly for my first education in torque steer. And a corresponding near miss with a traffic bollard asking me to keep left. Well, I was trying to stay in my lane as I came off the roundabout, but the car seemed a lot less certain. The junior salesman shakily asked if we could please go back now, thank you very much.

Chastened by that experience I assumed that any car with more than 100bhp was a complete liability and approached them all with as much trepidation as excitement. And then I drove a 10 year old MR2. What a complete honey. So light and easy to drive, so friendly and accurate. It spoke to me, urged me to drive, in a way my VW Scirocco never had.

I haven’t driven one since. I remembered the near vertical handbrake and the gearlever shaped like a thumbs up, but I have no recollection of the cabin’s standout feature – the chunky rotary/lever controllers mounted on the binnacles either side of the steering wheel. They’re not pretty, but they are brilliantly ergonomic.

Those, the airvents and the steering wheel are pretty much the only components to be found anywhere on the MR2 that understand that curves exist, that lines don’t have to be straight. The cabin is a series of boxes, the bodywork a wedge.

It’s an awkward looking thing – you can see why the cutesy MX-5 succeeded where this didn’t - but it also shows that the Mazda didn’t come out of nowhere. This, five years older, must have helped give Mazda a route to success – and a route to Norfolk. Because while Toyota just employed Lotus to help finesse the MR2, Mazda copied the original Elan lock stock.

The twincam 1.6-litre four is nestled transversely hard up against the rear bulkhead, sending 122bhp to the rear wheels via a five-speed manual. It sounds zippy and, weighing about smack on a tonne, pulls healthily to beyond 7,000rpm. It’s a zesty, fun car to drive. Sure, it rolls pretty well, but it never loses composure or gets wayward.

The second generation MR2 lost the plot initially, and it was only with the arrival of the third gen roadster version in 1999 that the MR2 regained its reputation for fine handling. But by then it was too late and the death knell sounded in 2007.

It’s the second generation MR2 that people tend to remember, but it’s this one we should celebrate. Like the AE86, the MR2 is Toyota quietly proving to the world that we should think of it as far more than a dull provider of Corollas and Carinas.

Maybe the Group B programme would have given it more status – the prototype was reputed to have a Koenigsegg rivalling 1:1 power to weight ratio, with 750bhp working on 750kg. It was, apparently, a complete liability. Much like me in that Fiat.

Hero: none more 1980s than this. A wedge on wheels that happens to handle beautifully

Zero: Toyota never built the Group B version