Vital Specs
2003 Toyota MR-S (AuDM)
6 speed SMT
Factory TRD bodykit
17" Speedy wheels with 205/40 tyres

Pictures









Rundown & Review
Firstly let me say this car is pretty slow compared to my boosted R33!
The SMT transmission is adequate on the upshift but great on the downshift. The 1ZZ-FE delivers power smoothly and it's very rev happy.
Handling wise, the car is very 'chuckable'. A 975kg weight means the car is one of the lightest on the road today. To help prevent any loss of control, the car comes standard with traction control, ABS and most importantly vehicle stability control.
With the car being so light, the brakes are more than adequate to stop the car. The brake pedal feel is solid. The only thing I could want from my brakes are for the calipers to be red!
The MR layout of the MR-S means you have a very different feel to my old FR Skyline. The front end is more twitchy and even in mild corners you can feel the weight of the engine pull the rear end around. I want to get to a trackday as soon as I can so I know the limits of the car and really learn the dynamics of driving a MR car.

I'll shed some light on the SMT here... It is not a traditional auto with a tiptronic gear selector. It is a fully fledged manual gearbox but with the computer controlling the clutch. There is no 'D' gear and unlike automatics, your car will not start rolling forward in gear. You have to also upshift yourself. The computer does downshift to 1st or 2nd for you when you slow down depending on how much you slow down.

Exterior wise, the car is black (the best colour!). There are some blemishes such as swirl marks and light scratches so I need to get to a detailer. Any recommendations for a detailer open on the weekends in the Sydney area would be appreciated.
The car comes fitted with a factory TRD kit so it saves me the headache and money of attaching a bodykit.
Headlights are projector style for low beam, which is great for a HID upgrade. Even with the yellow factory halogens now I can see they have a great cut-off and they are 10x better than my R33's reflectors.
The wheels currently on it are some garbage Speedy 17"s. I have to admit the wheels do look decent on the car but of course I'm going to replace them with some quality JDM rims.

The interior of the car is fairly simplistic but I do like the leather seats with their fairly low seating position. When the car is parked next to the kerb, the passenger must step up onto the pavement! The doors close solidly without any large rattling which I had in my R33 due to the side intrusion bar installation during compliance. The one thing I miss is the climate control I had in my R33.
The car comes with a MP3 6 disc stacker with tape deck. I may change the headunit to an Alpine head unit so it can interface with my iPod.
The steering wheel is just the right size and gearshift controls can be found both at the gear knob as well as buttons on the steering wheel. All interior lights including aircon controls, gauges etc light up orange.

The soft top roof is very simple to put up or down. I need to work on my left arm muscles so I can do it just by reaching back! The roof clips on with two sturdy clips on the top corners of the windscreen. When the top is down there is a small wind deflector you can put up so that wind does not blow into the cabin so much. One thing I especially like about the soft top is that it has a glass rear window (unlike the plastic ones found on other droptops) and thus also has a demister built in.

The car is one of the least practical on the road today. There is a storage space at the front (which is half taken up by the space-saver spare anyway) and some storage bins located behind the seats. Apart from that, that's it for any large storage spaces. I'm debating whether to leave the spare tyre at home to free up more storage room - this will of course upset the weight distribution of the car.

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tis a nice car James..

I should have taken some photos while we were out the other night

nice car, but i have to ask what made you swap?

boost scares him

looks neat James- just needs to be a little lower

The R33 was getting way too old. Things were breaking or not working and also there was the poor fuel economy of a boosted/modified car.

Unless it's some sort of project car, I will never ever ever buy a car older than 5 years old any more.

ive always hated these cars. most of them look like shit (with the kit, yours doesnt look too bad) and would probably have your head through the windscreen in a collision because theyre so damn light.
if i was you i'd keep the space saver in there because im sure it will help with the front end strength of the car in a collision. it will have some effect in stop it from completely buckling.

i would've gotten an s2000. my mate picked one up for $28k in IMMACULATE condition. the difference is around 8k... i would've paid it.

Doesnt look too bad there James.

Another questioon...how did you go selling your 33?
Trade in?
private sale?
How long did it take to sell?

1.Maybe you can explain how the mass of the vehicle impacts the structural rigidity of the vehicle?

2.How do you determine that a person will go through the windscreen of a vehicle due to its low mass?

3.Dont you think that the highly engineered safety features of this particular vehicle would surpass those designed for the R33 skyline, thus preventing a persons head from making contact with the windscreen more effectively than a vehicle designed/produced 10 years earlier?

4. How is an S2000 any safer than the mr-s?

It's different... At least it's black

By the way, thats a tastefully modified mr-s you have there. Congratulations on the purchase.

Fair point Joe. The S2000 is indeed a better car than the MR-S but from the prices I saw, anything under $30k meant a 1999 model and high kms. Maybe your mate was lucky.


I traded it in for $9k. Maybe abit low at face value, but the car was falling apart.

1. the car weighs sfa. so where has all the weight been saved, do you think?
2. the car is also tiny. my mate smacked his head on a windscreen of a liberty in an accident in a bigger car. would you like to see pics of the blood? i dont sit here thinking up shit to say because it sounds cool.
look at it logically. what could they have done differently in the new car to make it THAT much safer? super duper seat mounts? super strong seat belts? your own personal force field?
and the fact that the motor is in the back means that there is THAT much more momentum if it is in a head-on collision.
3. ofcorse not. skylines are performance vehicles and has a chassis to suit. this is not a performance vehicle and has a chassis to suit its purpose.
would you throw in a 300kw motor into this and deem it safe to be street driven without a roll cage? they do not over-engineer cars in this category as its not suited to its purpose (and adds more weight). and its pricing proves this.
4. an s2000 is a performance vehicle, its purpose was is to be a performance vehicle and has a chassis to suit.

Nice purchase there, i personally hate these cars......But this one is very nice i like it, especially in black

Going through midlife crisis already winky?

1. Its a spider 2/3 the size of a skyline. They dont remove weight from the car at the expense of safety, that is against all design rules and engineering principles. The only difference is there is much more of a crumple zone in the front end which will absorb frontal impact more effectively ie not shoving an engine through the firewall at your legs.

2. Look back and see when airbags came in, check the saftey requirements of seat belts between 1993 and 2003. Increased technology determine the positions for crumple zones for better shock absorbtion.
Your friend in the suburu had an accident and hit his head, why is he more likely to hit his head in a smaller car?
No seat mounts will not help in a front collision as there is no force against the seat.
No it does not sound cool that your mate hit his head though it had nothing to do with the weight of the car.
There will be more overall inertia in a heavier car, not because of the the position of the engine. With a mid engined car there is alot more room in the front for shock absorbtion.

3.Stock for stock the mr-s is more a performance vehicle than the gtst. Lets start with the mid mounted engine for a better centre of gravity, shorter wheel base, very decent sized brakes for the 1000kg vehicle it is. It doesnt have a roof because it was not designed to have one, not to save weight.
If you think you are protected in your skyline cos it has a roof then you have obviously never seen a car land on its roof. A roll cage will benefit any vehicle that suffers an impact to its roof. Lets face it 300kw in a gtst is not as stable as it is in a gtr(the real performance variant of the skyline). With its weight you would not need 300kw to make it a weapon that would be overkill and beyond the vehicle standard limits just like in a standard chassied skyline which is also not suitable for 300kw.

4. Yes the s2000 is a performance vehicle, why is it safer to be in an s2000 than an mr-s in a collision. You state that the s2000 has a more sport oriented chassis which i already know though how does this help when you are already out control?

As for light cars being less safe and or rigid check out Smart car crash tests done by topgear, it should be on you tube.

What is ti about people who keeps wanting to argue in these threads..............get over it already.

Awesome looking car! Only thing i don't like about those mr2's is how the dash looks! My brothers 1991 Pintara dash looks more modern lol.

Heh maybe? I don't know.
I just wanted a light car that could be thrown around easily.

1. the car is 2/3 of the size, but dont forget that all of the new technology weights a shit load. and dont forget the motor and what not to operate the convertible weighs a fair bit too. so the weight isnt actually 2/3 chassis.

2. you took this a little TOO literally. the overall compactness of the car will cause the driver/passenger to hit their heads on things as theyre sitting closer to the dash/steering wheel/windscreen.
there is no force against the seat? what about the seat itself? ive SEEN plenty of cars that have seats shear straight off their mounts as well as the adjuster thingo break too.
if the engine is in the back, the engine has inertia in itself. as the front of the car crumbles, the engine, with all of its mass, will be alot harder to stop than if it were at the front (where it would have stopped as it hit the object). the inertia of the engine will cause the car to crumple even more.
i know what you're saying with the whole crumple zone thing. but this is a 300-400kg motor you're trying to stop. ever run in front of a bull while its at full speed?
your mass alone wouldnt stop it. and the mr2 doesnt have that much of a crumple zone.

if you compare 2 cars, the mr2, and the mx5 (both practically the same). i will guarantee that there will be less front end damage to the mx5 than there will to the mr2. and the front end of the mr2 really isnt that long. by the time the 'crumple zone' is crumpled, the steering wheel is crushing your head because of the bigger crumple zone you're talking about.

3. i never mentioned a roof, did i? ive seen alot of accidents and alot of cars come out of accidents in different shapes (i did a bit of work as a panel beater through holidays).
im not telling you what i read in a book, ive seen these things.

4. if you're going to argue something, stay consistent. we're talking about front end collisions, side collisions are different as the cars are pretty much equal. the only talk about control here is that the car is going into a wall. s2000 would be stronger because to honda is it reasonably forseeable that the car would be in a high speed collision.

the car in top speed was intended for that purpose. the company who produces them (mercedes i think) intended it for the purpose of being as structuraly rigid as demonstrated. do you actually think they randomly chose that car? do they smash every car they road test?
that has got nothing to do with this discussion because its clear that the smart car was built purposely for that.

this can go back and forth for days and days. dont believe everything you read. go pop into a panel beater who does a wide range of cars and ask a few questions.
but ive got an idea. go buy/steal one of each car. hit a wall at 120 clicks and tell me how you go.

congrats on the new car dude, and im SO sorry for hijacking your thread. its definitely the best looking mr2 going around.

Heh you have to put up/pull down the soft top by hand - no motor!


It's cool.
The safety of a particular car, unless backed up by some kind of crash video or NCAP rating is always debateable, so can be argued for and against forever.