mr2 mk1a 2k mileage for £10k

[madman2]

just spotted this on piston heads what do you think lads.

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/870458.htm

2,567 miles £10,500




Its come the time that I need to let go probably one of the best MR2's in the world. This truely is a unique car. It has just one previous owner who bought the car for his wife who decided to never drive it, so it spent most of its life garaged. I was lucky enough to see it for sale in a small add and snapped their hands off.

It was registered 1st October 1985, its in the original red and black colours with unmarked red and black interior, its had no paintwork and has done only 2567 miles. It has the original stereo, spare wheel/jack etc. I have all of the original books which are also in excellent condition. It has a sunroof and the original cover and even smells like it has just come out of the Toyota factory. i have had it stored in a heated garage for the last year and when i went to start it it fired up first time. You wont beleive how it drives, its a shame there are no others around like this one.

As I havent used it I havent MOT'd it or taxed it but I will if required.

This car can only go to a true enthusiast who will look after it properly.

[Ryan S]

just spotted this on piston heads what do you think lads.

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/870458.htm

2,567 miles £10,500




Its come the time that I need to let go probably one of the best MR2's in the world. This truely is a unique car. It has just one previous owner who bought the car for his wife who decided to never drive it, so it spent most of its life garaged. I was lucky enough to see it for sale in a small add and snapped their hands off.

It was registered 1st October 1985, its in the original red and black colours with unmarked red and black interior, its had no paintwork and has done only 2567 miles. It has the original stereo, spare wheel/jack etc. I have all of the original books which are also in excellent condition. It has a sunroof and the original cover and even smells like it has just come out of the Toyota factory. i have had it stored in a heated garage for the last year and when i went to start it it fired up first time. You wont beleive how it drives, its a shame there are no others around like this one.

As I havent used it I havent MOT'd it or taxed it but I will if required.

This car can only go to a true enthusiast who will look after it properly.

there's a post already up about this, think the general consencus wasthat it was overpriced, i think it's right on the money though!! in 5-10 years time it will be worth a lot more i think.

[robwsurf]

in 5 to 10 years time it will be rusty like most other mr2 s if its used

[Ryan S]

in 5 to 10 years time it will be rusty like most other mr2 s if its used

well it's not rusty now

[Superfly]

That to me is about £5000 overpriced and in the current economic climate worth even less.

[LimeyMk1]

What seems to be the attraction of an 'original spare' I've seen it on so many ads. It just means that the tyre they're supplying with the car should be replaced ASAP.

[halflife]

Sorry to disagree with everyone, but if i had £10.5 i would snap this up. There is another (blue) one that has been sat in a dealers show room but other than that i think this is probably one of a kind.

The only problem is i would want to drive her and she would instantly loose all her value

[oukie]

The car that was sitting in a dealers show room had only done 30 something miles though but as this car is a mk1a i think its worth the cash also although I cant afford it

[Tiny]

At the end of the day its worth whatever people are willing to pay if i had 10k to go out and buy a car that i was never going to drive and just look at and take to Car shows once a year then maybe i would. but then for £10k the original low mileage alternatives that are out there are alot more appealing

RA28 1976 celica with 20Kkm on the clock in black £7k at japanese auction and 3K for shipping.

im pretty sure i could have it put into a container by itself and travel out there and buy it personally too



lets face it the only thing thats going to make that any better is if it was bullet green

[Jim-SR]

no way is ANY mk1 MR2 worth over £10k, regardless of condition

the reason being that everything depreciates. it doesnt matter if a car has zero miles on the clock, if it is 20+ years old then it has depreciated in value. the cars cost something like £13-15k brand new iirc, so this car is worth, in theory, £3-5k in the current financial climate

however, the only way a car gains value is if there is a buying market that dictates the price to be higher. if something is in high demand and short supply then the price will rise. i dont see a queue of people lining up to pay £10k for a car that is over 20 years old, there is barely even a queue to pay £1500 for a half decent one. so the buyer is either going to hold out for a single person to come along and pay a stupid amount of money for a car that is worth less than half its asking price, or the price is going to drop gradually until someone bites. i reckon the most anyone will pay is probably £7-8k, it is worth £5k tops

for some reason a few people (mostly on the owners clubs) seem to regard the MR2 as some kind of cult classic and rare sports car. in reality it is a run of the mill budget sports car (no better than an MX5, S2000, Lotus Elise (id rate a Lotus Elise as better in fact)) that has gained its current popularity and following mainly due to the fact you can pick up a good one for £1500-2500!! if Lotus Elises were that cheap, then most people here wouldnt be driving an MR2 i would predict. if a cars popularity is based on how cheap it is, then to start thinking that a mint one should be worth almost as much now as it was new totally defies the origins of the cars popularity. if they cost big money then 99% of MR2 owners wouldnt be interested anymore!

thus i go back to my original point - a good MR2 is worth £1500-2500, an absolutely mint MR2 is therefore worth about £5k, because it has no heritage or historical importance, or even any kind of sports car pedigree. it was a budget everyday driver when it came out, and still remains that. if you push the price north of £5k then you could just as easily buy an MX5 or an S2000 or an S1 Elise. and if that becomes the case, then the MR2's "classic" status and following will disappear overnight

having said all that i wouldnt be surprised if someone will be stupid enough to pay the asking price. but i reckon youd easily knock the seller down to £7k if you showed up with pound notes

[crazybrightman]

it, will be knackered noting worse than a car sitting doing nothing. weeping seals, hard bushes and rubbers, tyres knackered etc etc. you could buy a decent one have all the know rust areas repaired with stainless panels and it still wouldn't cost you half that.
as jim-sr says they are popular as they are cheap, bang for your buck cars with a little retro thrown in too, they arnt rare or desirable to fetch that sort of money.

[russthedude]

no way is ANY mk1 MR2 worth over £10k, regardless of condition

the reason being that everything depreciates. it doesnt matter if a car has zero miles on the clock, if it is 20+ years old then it has depreciated in value. the cars cost something like £13-15k brand new iirc, so this car is worth, in theory, £3-5k in the current financial climate

but you're forgetting that £10k in 1985 is not the same as £10k today, so it has depreciated. at a guess, i'd say buying that car new in todays money would probably be around £35k. So it has lost 2 thirds of its value. £15k would get you a hell of a lot of car in 1985, today it will get you a Fiesta.

[oukie]

no way is ANY mk1 MR2 worth over £10k, regardless of condition

the reason being that everything depreciates. it doesnt matter if a car has zero miles on the clock, if it is 20+ years old then it has depreciated in value. the cars cost something like £13-15k brand new iirc, so this car is worth, in theory, £3-5k in the current financial climate

but you're forgetting that £10k in 1985 is not the same as £10k today, so it has depreciated. at a guess, i'd say buying that car new in todays money would probably be around £35k. So it has lost 2 thirds of its value. £15k would get you a hell of a lot of car in 1985, today it will get you a Fiesta.

Yep thats exactly what I was thinking

[Jim-SR]

no way is ANY mk1 MR2 worth over £10k, regardless of condition

the reason being that everything depreciates. it doesnt matter if a car has zero miles on the clock, if it is 20+ years old then it has depreciated in value. the cars cost something like £13-15k brand new iirc, so this car is worth, in theory, £3-5k in the current financial climate

but you're forgetting that £10k in 1985 is not the same as £10k today, so it has depreciated. at a guess, i'd say buying that car new in todays money would probably be around £35k. So it has lost 2 thirds of its value. £15k would get you a hell of a lot of car in 1985, today it will get you a Fiesta.

car prices didnt really work like that though. in 1988 a Corolla 1.6GL cost about £13-14k. a mk1 MR2 from the same year cost £14k as well

they werent highly priced compared to other cars of the time, they were PURPOSELY priced in the same bracket. Toyota werent targetting high performance sports car customers. they were targetting the every day consumer, in the same was as the MX5, CRX Del-Sol, etc did. the MR2 has NEVER been a car of any significance. it has always just been good value for money.

good value for money means that if cars start costing the earth for a decent example, people wont buy them. thus i reitterate. no mk1 MR2 is EVER worth £10k+ in standard form. the only way a car could ever be worth that much is if tens of thousands were ploughed into one creating a modified monster way beyond anything an MR2 has ever done before. even super expensive track cars (and not mickey mouse MR2 challenge cars, were talking proper cars here) sell for £4-5k when owners have spent 5 times that amount on them in the 3-5 years prior to that.

[russthedude]

just because Toyota priced them to be aimed at the every day customer, doesn't change economics. average house price in 1985 was £33k. eek! a mk1 was almost half the cost of a house lol.

if you put £10k in the bank in 1985 and got 3% interest each year, how much would you have today? you'd have over 20k, that doesn't mean you've duobled your money and are a winner, cos everything else around you has gone up in price too. so, assuming things have gone up an average of 3% a year between then and now (which could be way off the mark!) a £15k car in 1985 would cost £30k today, 20% more than the current average wage. average income in 1985 was £140 a week, making our mk1's twice the amount of your average yearly wage.

It's a good job I didn't study economics

P.S of course a MK1 is worth £10k, must have been ats ome point or Toyota wuoldn;t have sold any

[JMR_AW11]

FWIW MK1 MR2s were cheap in 1985.

IIRC my mum bought a brand new 1985 mk1a and paid extra for a black one and it was still around the £9k mark. (this price is from memory so may not be totally accurate)

She bought another (this was a T bar with leather) new in 1989 and it cost about £15k due to the changed economic climate in the UK/Japan during those 4 years. (UK £ vs Yen exchange rate altered a LOT making the Yen very strong and Jap car prices went up rapidly (in terms of price in £) during the 1980s)

Also note that a basic Mazda MX5 doesn't cost that much more today than a similar MX5 model cost new in 1990.

Car prices haven't inflated the same as the retail price index since 1990. They've gone up much less.

[SteveM]

it, will be knackered noting worse than a car sitting doing nothing. weeping seals, hard bushes and rubbers, tyres knackered etc etc. you could buy a decent one have all the know rust areas repaired with stainless panels and it still wouldn't cost you half that.
as jim-sr says they are popular as they are cheap, bang for your buck cars with a little retro thrown in too, they arnt rare or desirable to fetch that sort of money.

I have to disagree with this I'm afraid as I own a MK1 with a similar mileage and it has none of these problems Yes I've changed the tyres as a precaution but even they were still passing MOT's as recent as last year, there's no sign of cracking on the side walls even after all this time. Ultra low mileage examples of all sorts of cars come up for sale relatively often if you watch the classic/retro market and they always fetch a big premium so I don't see why an MR2 should be any different? Just my opinion of course

[Jim-SR]

just because Toyota priced them to be aimed at the every day customer, doesn't change economics. average house price in 1985 was £33k. eek! a mk1 was almost half the cost of a house lol.

if you put £10k in the bank in 1985 and got 3% interest each year, how much would you have today? you'd have over 20k, that doesn't mean you've duobled your money and are a winner, cos everything else around you has gone up in price too. so, assuming things have gone up an average of 3% a year between then and now (which could be way off the mark!) a £15k car in 1985 would cost £30k today, 20% more than the current average wage. average income in 1985 was £140 a week, making our mk1's twice the amount of your average yearly wage.

It's a good job I didn't study economics

P.S of course a MK1 is worth £10k, must have been ats ome point or Toyota wuoldn;t have sold any

as said, car prices didnt work like that though. car values have risen MUCH less over the years than property values.

also, another point to consider - what if the MR2 had cost £100k in 1985, and new cars today were super cheap and only cost £1k brand new. would the MR2, which in 1985 was an average car still be worth more money than a BRAND NEW car of similar stature? you could say that average depreciation would mean it was worth more than £1k, but nobody would be stupid enough to pay more money for an old banger than a brand new car.

car prices didnt rise at the same rate as property and other items. thus you cant compare a cars depreciation based on price rises of other products over the past 2 decades. it was worth £14k in 1989, its worth £1500 in good condition now. theres no way a mint one (lets note that it ISNT brand new, it hasnt been showroomed, its been driven at some point) should fetch 75% of the original sale value. irrelevant of time. an MR2 brand new today would probably have cost £17k last year (right now theyd be throwing them out the door at much less than that in the current financial climate)

[Ryan S]

At the end of the day its worth whatever people are willing to pay if i had 10k to go out and buy a car that i was never going to drive and just look at and take to Car shows once a year then maybe i would. but then for £10k the original low mileage alternatives that are out there are alot more appealing

RA28 1976 celica with 20Kkm on the clock in black £7k at japanese auction and 3K for shipping.

im pretty sure i could have it put into a container by itself and travel out there and buy it personally too



lets face it the only thing thats going to make that any better is if it was bullet green

i need to borrow one of these for a number plate transfer!!!!!!

rare is not the word!!!

[bobbyh]

i know where my 10 bags would be going... absolutely no comparison.

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/801905.htm