Some thoughts on my first week of MR2 ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While it is perfectly possible for me to drive this vehicle with my giant work shoes I now fully understand white people wear round heel driving shoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That engine sound right behind your shoulder is one of the sweetest things I have ever experienced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While I was initially concerned about the size of the steering wheel and considered putting in a good quality removable oh, I am no longer remotely interested in this. What you learn how to get in the car it’s not bad at all. I have driven 914 and Alpha graduates and Lotus Elise and this is actually roomy by comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I used to hate roundabouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The shift throw on this is so tiny that I keep over-reaching 2 to 3 and go 2 to 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having driven some legitimate high performance cars I understand why people say this is not a fast car. It isn’t. But it certainly makes up for being fast by being fun. During the time I was saving my nickels and dimes to buy this I looked at a lot of cars. The week I purchased the car I literally saw a Jaguar convertible, a Mercedes convertible, a BMW convertible and a Maserati hardtop. The price of which together did not add up to what I spent on the MR2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand when I want to drive the MR2 all I have to do is get in it and turn the key. I will not have to spend half of my life working on it like the Jaguar or the Maserati, I will not have to invest my great grandchildren’s College fund on new shocks like the Mercedes or take out a second mortgage on my house to replace a radiator like the BMW. Because it’s a Toyota and because it’s the right year and because it was impeccably maintained it should be reliable as well as easy and inexpensive to maintain which was my whole goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Car turns heads. I don’t think I could get this much of a reaction out of a much more expensive car. In fact my company ride is more than four times what this cost and nobody pays any attention to it at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hats are definitely a thing. I’m not a hat wearer except when I’m hunting or hiking and then generally I wear a Stetson Moab or some other crushable type of hat. I had to dig around to find a gimme cap, and it is not a look that pleases me. It just screams midlife crisis and I am practically a generation beyond that point. And the little Tweed flat cap just seems pretentious and aspirational. I could probably pull that off if I had bought the Jag but mostly because I would never be seen actually driving it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sunglasses are also a thing but since I wear prescription glasses the best I can hope for is the clip-on style and they don’t do much to protect the sides. So I might end up having to get a pair of driving goggles just out of sheer Whimsy. In fact I might even consider the goggles and an aviators leather cap just out of sheer Whimsy. Especially if I can find something that looks very much like the outfit Marty Feldman wore in silent movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Actually I will probably see if I can drive with the Stetson on without blowing it off. When the wind deflector is up there isnt really a lot of wind in the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the way back from Michigan there were tons of alligators on the road. An alligator for the uninitiated is a chunk of tread shredded off of a semi Tire. Hitting one of these in a car this small is like hitting a wheelbarrow in a normal sized car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike my company car which is actually an explorer you can’t wiggle the steering wheel even two or three degrees, every tiny twitch the steering wheel elicits a response from the suspension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can see where a hardtop would be a handy thing. With a hardtop this would certainly be an acceptable daily driver even with a long commute. The only issue with that would be the stick, as light as this clutchis and as short as the throw is I would still not want to row this thing through Rush Hour Chicago traffic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some thoughts on my first week of MR2 ownership. While it is perfectly possible for me to drive this vehicle with my giant work shoes I now fully understand white people wear round heel driving shoes. That engine sound right behind your shoulder is one of the sweetest things I have ever experienced. While I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8384"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8385,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8384\/revisions\/8385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}