Acquired in 2015, this clean ‘88 MR2 NA spent most of its life garaged in Minnesota. A couple of cosmetic incidents in the past mean that it’s no longer an un-restored original. This makes the perfect base for a performance build with a resto-mod feel. Otherwise it’s mechanically sound, rust-free, and just begging to see some track time. It’s also one of the most fun cars I’ve ever driven. It feels like a go-kart with doors and a roof. No power steering, no ABS, no traction control. Sure it may be lacking in power, but it more than makes up for that in pure driver enjoyment. And this is 2015, making power isn’t as hard as it used to be. There’s plenty to squeeze out of the Toyota 4AGE. I’ll be spending the next two years massaging out the wear and tear, sorting out what the car needs to compete on the track, and will hopefully cap the project off in 2018 with an entry in the ‘One Lap of America’. At the moment there isn’t too much cast in stone with how I’ll be doing the build, but there are a couple of incorruptible rules that I can’t stray from. It needs to be easily supportable over the course of the event. So that rules out a lot of the common JDM swaps, I don’t want a DNF over some silly minor part that’s easy to get in Japan but not available in the US. It needs to be street legal and able to drive in all conditions. It has to perform not just on the track, but also for 5,000+ miles of near constant driving over a 10 day period.

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