Guy Buys 1993 Toyota MR2 Turbo Garage Find With 1,461 Miles For Just $500!

Few mainstream Japanese sports cars are as desirable and evocative as the Toyota MR2 Turbo, particularly in its second generation. You can therefore imagine our amazement when we stumbled upon the story of a Reddit user purchasing a mint and barely driven 1993 MR2 that was sitting at a garage for just $500.

Redditor buckeye_silverado claims that this white MR2 was sitting at the shop they worked at for the past couple of years. Upon further investigation, the enthusiast discovered from the shop owner that the sports car had actually been dropped off in 1999 because it wouldn’t run.

For some strange reason, the driver of the MR2 Turbo couldn’t be contacted ever again and the car was left to sit at the shop for almost 20 years.

The plot thickens…

As the car had just 1461 miles or 2,351km under its belt, the Reddit user did exactly what any revhead would. He asked the shop owner if he could purchase it. After some digging, it was discovered that the MR2 Turbo had actually been stolen from a Toyota dealership in 1993 but never resurfaced.

After organizing a title and handing over $500 for the car, the proud new owner got it running after making a new wiring harness for the starter, fuel pump, and speedometer. To breath new life back into the sports car, a sound system was fitted alongside different seats and an updated fuel pump.

Introduced in 1989, the second-generation Toyota MR2 Turbo features a 2.0-liter 3S-GTE engine delivering 200 hp and mated to a five-speed manual transmission. Fresh out of the showroom, the car could hit 60 mph (96 km/h) in a touch over 6.1 seconds and run the quarter mile in 14.7 seconds.

Images posted to Reddit of this MR2 Turbo reveal that it is in excellent shape. From a distance, the paint seems to be in reasonable condition and with the exception of some dust inside, the interior also looks quite good. More importantly, the vehicle’s underbody appears in good condition and only features some surface rust. Not bad for something that’s been sitting outside the past 20 years.