Why are MR2 Turbos still undervalued?

[merde2]

I'm currently selling my Rev 3 turbo, which I think is a decent example among very few that appear for sale. I can count only 2 other half decent ones since I listed mine listed October.

However I'm shocked at how little interest I've had and not only that I've had multiple people telling me quite rudely, how overvalued my car is and they can get a decent Rev 3 turbo for £3-4k. It certainly seems like a perception multiple buyers have.

So why is the MR2 turbo still so undervalued? Particularly when you compare it to pretty much every other 90s Japanese car.

[MR2TRD8]

It's a tough time to sell a car and with the covid restrictions it makes it pretty hard for buyers to get to you.

When stuff opens back up and restrictions are lifted im sure it will sell. Iv got a 300zx for sale on eBay and although Iv had lots of interest but no ones actually managed to travel to view it and I don't want to deliver it so I'll just have to wait.

Why don't you try listing it and selling it on here?

The people offering you 3/4K will buy it give it a polish and relist it for £8/10k if it's a nice example pal

[wilkie senior]

I would concurr tough time to be selling at least private car sales

I have guitars for sale and ive given up until things get back back to sort of normality

Hang in there Im sure people pent up for 12 months the market will bounce back at some point

[jimGTS]

I'm currently selling my Rev 3 turbo, which I think is a decent example among very few that appear for sale. I can count only 2 other half decent ones since I listed mine listed October.

However I'm shocked at how little interest I've had and not only that I've had multiple people telling me quite rudely, how overvalued my car is and they can get a decent Rev 3 turbo for £3-4k. It certainly seems like a perception multiple buyers have.

So why is the MR2 turbo still so undervalued? Particularly when you compare it to pretty much every other 90s Japanese car.

i feel like im reading a post from 5-10 years ago, back when rev3 turbos were going for 4ish.

a tidy example should be 6-8 depending of mods/condition.
plenty have sold for over 10k recently, the more high profile modified ones anyways.

[Martin F]

No Rally Heritage has a huge Impact on prices. That and old age. Many have corrosion problems with the sills and chassis.
Engines don't handle boost particularly well on standard formats and turbo set ups.
The cars that are fetching 10k plus have had 3 times that much love, care, attention and £ spent on them.
My pal sold a rev 3 turbo (totally standard apart from the wheels and a £800 exhaust for £3k a few months ago), That was after advertising several times over 3 months.
The people Bigging up the price are the chancers wanting to make a few £ , (Bit like the OP), wrong choice of purchase Imo unless you find a very low mileage, pristine example or a car that has had 30k spent on it.
Saying that the cars that make money might be outwith their funds, Truth hurts !

[MR2TRD8]

No Rally Heritage has a huge Impact on prices. That and old age. Many have corrosion problems with the sills and chassis.
Engines don't handle boost particularly well on standard formats and turbo set ups.
The cars that are fetching 10k plus have had 3 times that much love, care, attention and £ spent on them.
My pal sold a rev 3 turbo (totally standard apart from the wheels and a £800 exhaust for £3k a few months ago), That was after advertising several times over 3 months.
The people Bigging up the price are the chancers wanting to make a few £ , (Bit like the OP), wrong choice of purchase Imo unless you find a very low mileage, pristine example or a car that has had 30k spent on it.
Saying that the cars that make money might be outwith their funds, Truth hurts !

Any tidy rev3 turbos for £3k I'll call dibs on please if he advertised it 7 times in 3 months he was probably skint so basically gave it away.

[Martin F]

No Rally Heritage has a huge Impact on prices. That and old age. Many have corrosion problems with the sills and chassis.
Engines don't handle boost particularly well on standard formats and turbo set ups.
The cars that are fetching 10k plus have had 3 times that much love, care, attention and £ spent on them.
My pal sold a rev 3 turbo (totally standard apart from the wheels and a £800 exhaust for £3k a few months ago), That was after advertising several times over 3 months.
The people Bigging up the price are the chancers wanting to make a few £ , (Bit like the OP), wrong choice of purchase Imo unless you find a very low mileage, pristine example or a car that has had 30k spent on it.
Saying that the cars that make money might be outwith their funds, Truth hurts !

Any tidy rev3 turbos for £3k I'll call dibs on please if he advertised it 7 times in 3 months he was probably skint so basically gave it away.

In all Honesty i considered buying it myself and sticking it in storage but it was on 90k miles and probably needed some money spent on it.
He wasn't Broke by any means but got fed up with a couple silly offers !
Ironically He actually only paid £500 for the car, fixed the brakes, stuck a mot on her and made a few £

[MR2TRD8]

Yeah you should have bought it 3k is a steal. Iv watched some through eBay and at auction a tidy rev2 is about 5/6k. The lower mileage rev2 ones have actually sold at auction for over £7k and these aren't classified asking prices but sold auction prices

I watched a very very rusty rev 3 sell at auction holes in sills no mot for over £4K not many rev3s have gone through auction

[merde2]

I think this is the problem, whenever people talk about cheap MR2 Turbos, it always turns out the examples are an absolute bag of nails.

If they got the car for only £500 I can only imagine what kind of state it was in!

As another said, half decent Rev 2's are £5/6k now, so a decent Rev 3 should in theory be an easy £8k+

[Hez]

They have done the full circle. You could get a decent rev 3 turbo for around 3k 7-8 years ago if you shopped around. They're getting old now and imports are drying up as they aren't as viable anymore. The lack of supply is driving prices up but in a few more years there won't be many at all most of them will be half finished projects and rotting on driveways . The good examples will be perpetually on eBay for 10k+ . Unfortunately they're going the way of old Nissans e.g. 200sx. I love the MR2 Turbo and I've had 3 of them but unless your a massive enthusiast with money on the hip they're getting past it.

[Martin F]

They have done the full circle. You could get a decent rev 3 turbo for around 3k 7-8 years ago if you shopped around. They're getting old now and imports are drying up as they aren't as viable anymore. The lack of supply is driving prices up but in a few more years there won't be many at all most of them will be half finished projects and rotting on driveways . The good examples will be perpetually on eBay for 10k+ . Unfortunately they're going the way of old Nissans e.g. 200sx. I love the MR2 Turbo and I've had 3 of them but unless your a massive enthusiast with money on the hip they're getting past it.

Yeap, My thoughts exactly !

The mr2 will always have a huge part in my history and life, loved the swagger and all the memories !
Unfortunately they just don't have the ooomph or following to make them worth much in their latter years !
Very few people have the want or incline to research or want one !
If you have a rev 3 in great condition with low miles then you might get lucky with a 4-8k sale.
Have one with good power and a small mortgage spent on it see 10k....
Then you have cars like Scotts and maybe the 5- 9 other members have built over the last 15 years... 12-15k...
Average Joe buying a mr2 to make money isn't going to happen. Been with these cars for 20 odd years, hate to be breaking the horses back but the facts are they have never had the following like the ford RS boys or the heritage of the Mitsubishi evo range ...

[MR2TRD8]

Well I can 100% confirm no one wants to sell their rev3 Mr2 turbos for £3k as sadly I have had 0 offers off anyone so far wanting to sell 🤣

To the original poster, wait till everything opens up again and I'm sure it will go. If it's tidy and mileage decent it's worth 8k+ all day long.

There's always long standing members on here ripping into mr2s and their values Iv no idea why they do it but I would just look at what stuff has actually sold for recently and what the cars are doing at auction and imo that's what they are worth.

Try listing it on cars and classics site, my friend had a nice rev2 non turbo with low miles but very nice and he sold it for £6800 last year. Good luck with your sale pal

[SonicSW20]

I've 3k waiting here for a working Rev3+ turbo as long as its not got developing rust issues.

I'll take two if that's all they're worth!

[Martin F]

I think this is the problem, whenever people talk about cheap MR2 Turbos, it always turns out the examples are an absolute bag of nails.

If they got the car for only £500 I can only imagine what kind of state it was in!

As another said, half decent Rev 2's are £5/6k now, so a decent Rev 3 should in theory be an easy £8k+

You are living on a different planet !

You bought a car last summer, trying to sell on for profit, Yeah ? You choose the wrong car then because it isn't going to happen....
6k for a rev 2, don't make me laugh, most are rust buckets now !

I wouldn't pay 6k for a rev 3 because i know all their weak points and unless low mileage or rust free aren't worth that...

The car in question had done 2k miles over the last 10 years, original owner bought back, did a little work, advertised it online and after 3 months accepted 3k...
I'm not going to ague with you as i don't care about your thoughts but i do like to make a few quid, just won't be doing it by buying a few mr2s and hoping some poor mug will pay me twice what they are worth !

Good examples that have been recently imported or heavily modified might go for 7k-14k
Prices are good in usa or japan simply because they don't have to deal with car cancer (salt in uk winters)...

[Martin F]

I've 3k waiting here for a working Rev3+ turbo as long as its not got developing rust issues.

I'll take two if that's all they're worth!

Rust free then 5-6k, No bother at all and probably a good investment in all Honesty !

[Martin F]

I'm currently selling my Rev 3 turbo

To sell or advertise on Imoc requires premium membership. Can i take this opportunity to ask you to Join up, create a nice advert with your car 'for sale' , throw in some pictures and asking price.
You can then use our Facebook page to open up the market and maybe prove me wrong !

[Martin F]

I've 3k waiting here for a working Rev3+ turbo as long as its not got developing rust issues.

I'll take two if that's all they're worth!

P.S. How many rust free Examples are there in the UK ? , I'm not mocking a rev 3 mr2 Turbo, i'm just stating that the examples selling for decent money are either in very good condition, low miles, rust free or have had 15k+ spent on them to make them go faster.
95% on the market are not in good condition, abused by the average British petrol head or have more faults than the Berlin wall !!!
It's not a car you are going to make money off by buying in June 2020 and be selling 3 months Later expecting twice as much !
Hence my replies to the OP !

[Hez]

All that Ebay and the freeads tell me is that there are a few ok examples getting regurgitated again and again. Someone who's never had one pays over the odd's thinking its a future classic. They bite off more than they can chew chasing rust around, worn out suspensions, rev 2's with leaking gaskets, bad mods etc etc. They realise that they will need to spend thousand's so the car ends up sitting on someone's driveway or back on Ebay having done 10 miles hoping to make some money back.

Also, what people are listing them for and what they get are two different things.

Good luck to anyone buying or selling but as mentioned by someone else the average Joe or ex-owner isn't going to spend big money on one of these, barely any are getting imported so good ones are getting hard to find, most of them are overpriced buckets.

There are a few of the hardcore who still keep these things going and its great to see but for most you're 10 years too late.

[yokomomr4bx]

I think it's interesting how a lot of us are talking about the MR2 as an 'investment'. I'm not sure this is the best approach to MR2 ownership. I've owned my rev 3 turbo for the better part of a decade now, bought at a time when well modified/clean examples were fetching 3-4K. I paid 3.5K for mine. I couldn't give a toss about the current market value because I still enjoy owning/maintaining/driving the car and don't foresee this changing anytime soon.

Looking for a return on an MR2 as an investment is a pointless exercise. Equally, if you're an enthusiast and are desperately haggling the price down, you're also missing the point. I would happily pay 5 - 7K for my current car if I was offered it tomorrow...because I'm an enthusiast and I WANT to own the car.

I don't look at the market often, but when I do, I notice a distinct lack of even half-decent rev 3 turbos, so I would agree with OP that his car is not overvalued. I also agree with a lot of the comments suggesting why the MR2 has been undervalued for so long, and likely will continue to be. It's a niche car, but unfortunately it's still being treated like a readily available commodity.

As to the suggestion that the car doesn't have racing heritage, I would strongly disagree. Let's not forget the 3SGTE was the engine that took on the RB26 in the JGTC...not the 2JZ-GTE. And as for rallying, how much more pedigree do you want than the Celica??

[SonicSW20]

The car doesn't have European or American racing heritage - JGTC was not followed much outside of Japan.

The Celica is an interesting one that shows that its not all about pedigree of the specific car. ST185's are pocket change compared to an Escort Cosworth, despite the fact that the ST185 won the WRC drivers championship three times , and the constructors twice. The Escort Cosworth won a decent amount of rally events, but never took a WRC drivers or constructors title.