This was also posted at pistonheads, but wanted to share here too. Because I love it 
Hello everyone, allow me your attention for a while, and maybe even your imagination. Today I picked up my dream car.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Daniel was a strict car fanatic, even at the age of seven. Every time his mum took him anywhere, he would have to have a new toy car to add to his collection. Usually a matchbox, with the name of the car engraved in the plastic bottom. That's how he matched the shapes of the cars with their names, when spotting real cars on journeys. He and his Mum would make a game out of it, seeing who could recognise the most cars. She loved playing this game, despite them playing it on almost every journey.
One day he decided on his favourite toy car, and he wouldn't stop playing with it. When he joined his friend Christopher at his house across the road, they would play with their cars, pretending the living room carpet represented a vast city space. They used to swap cars a lot, but Daniel wouldn't let Christopher play with his favourite. A bright red Toyota mr2.
Being Daniels favourite, he would leap with joy whenever he spotted an mr2 on the open road. Even more so if it was red, but the colour was of little importance when he spotted one of these machines. He became obsessed with them, and would twist his neck violently even at the hint of a red car, often to be disappointed by some dull German or British design instead.
Later on, he would enjoy driving a Toyota mr2 on the virtual roads of Gran Turismo on his Playstation. His family didn't have a lot of money, and never did, so he was flabbergasted and overjoyed when he found a Playstation with Gran Turismo under his Christmas tree. Even his sisters were jealous, and they were spoilt rotten. So from then on, he and Chris from across the road would play Gran Turismo, each enjoying the challenge of passing a new licence test or beating the other in a race around Trial Mountain or some other track from someone’s imagination. Daniel would always pick his mr2, and almost always win.
Soon he grew up, and forgot about the car that ruled all cars. He became interested in other things. Sport, girls, music, films and just about anything that his friends steered him towards. He still loved cars but they took a back seat for now. In his late teenage years, he fell on some hard times and struggled through school. He left school and found work. Not very good work, but work. And with the girls and the sports and the music all out of his system, and with a little bit of money in his pockets, he finally got his driving license.
He was reminded of something by a friend. The friend drove a car with a certain level of lunacy, and made a whooshing noise as he went through the gears. He knew the car from his hundreds of hours playing Gran Turismo. A Nissan Skyline GT-R. The R33 model. He was extremely jealous, and after the journey, something was now niggling at the back of his mind. It came to him as he stared at his own vehicle, a burnt orange Ford Fiesta 1.4, on his driveway. The R33 reminded him of his own Japanese dream machine. The old Toyota mr2. The thought of it filled him with great nostalgia. Surely people don't still drive them?
No sooner had he got home and flung his shoes off, than he was scouring the internet, feasting on the hundreds of examples up for sale. He pored over them for hours, applying his passion for vintage aircraft research to his search for the perfect mr2. Most of the ones he looked at were the wrong colour, in bad condition, abused, too modified, too turbo. So he went to bed disappointed but not defeated.
After work the next day, he started searching again with fresh eyes and a hopeful heart. His fingers tingled as he hovered the mouse over an advert on Pistonheads. He clicked. He read. He opened the photos, and scrolled through them slowly and with purpose. This was the mr2 for him.
He immediately put his car up for sale on several internet sites, and through word of mouth. He had to get rid of it as soon as possible before the perfect mr2 was sold. There was hope. The car was some distance away, in a very small village, so hopefully fewer people would look at it. He sat at his computer each day after work, refreshing e-bay and his email account, waiting for someone to make an offer. It took just over three weeks for his orange Fiesta to be taken off his hands. It sold after he spent four hours cleaning the bodywork and interior, then uploading the pictures, showing the car to its full potential. Then he made the dreaded phone call.
“Hello, is that Marianne?”
“Yes...”
“Is the mr2 still for sale?”
…
“Sorry the line broke up” she says.
“Is your mr2 still available?”
“Yes, still here. Would you like to come and have a look?”
Err, yes, just a little bit! He thought.
The very next day he employed the help of a friend and drove the 60+ miles to view the mr2 immediately after work. As the miles fell away he felt great anticipation. It was a long way to drive, just to be disappointed. It was not to be.
The car looked in even better condition in real life. It looked smaller than he remembered, in the days when he used to spot them from his mums Escort window. But it looked taut and purposeful. Made for him. He hoped the test drive would be everything he felt was owed to him.
Nothing could have prepared him for the growl of the 2.0L engine sitting very closely behind his head. His host, the owner of the vehicle, turned onto a country road but instead of shifting up to second gear, she kept it in first all the way to 30mph, then into 2nd gear, and suddenly they were sitting at 50mph. Still accelerating, they were at 70mph in some very short seconds. The mr2 ate the road up. It was set up beautifully on aftermarket alloy wheels and some very close to stock tyres. Just how he wanted it to be. At the top of the long road, they turned around with a little kick of wheel spin. Now they were flying back the other way. This time he tried to pay some attention to her hands and feet, to gain some idea of the vehicles mechanical condition. He was quickly distracted by that noise behind his head, and some very interesting turns in second gear. They were soon parked up and he was thanking his host, then he was almost home, still with the drive dominating his thoughts.
He had to have it. But would it be as good if it was his? What if the noise and the shove was only so good because he was a passenger, enjoying his first ride in one? He wouldn't know for sure for another week. He wanted it. Bad. The next day he arranged for a deposit and a pick up day. Less than one week, on the following Monday.
The waiting game would not be pleasant. He went to view another m2, to have something to compare to. It was extremely impressive, but wasn't the car for him. He knew the red mr2 was his. So he counted the days and then the hours, thinking only about his mr2. He even enjoyed arranging the insurance the day before, finally realising that the dream was about to come true. In one sleeps time, he would be the proud owner of a mint condition, Red, Toyota mr2.
He went to bed early that night, no longer able to watch the hours crawl along, and he quickly fell into a heavy sleep.
He woke up to some extremely interesting weather. Side gusts of some knots, heavy rain and deep puddles that might also be called ponds. Driving a powerful, rear-engined, rear- wheel drive car home would test his driving unlike the Fiesta ever could. He knew he was inexperienced, but trusted his knowledge and skill, aided by years of playing racing games on computers.
The anticipation was even greater than when he went to view the car. Now it was HIS mr2. He could barely contain his excitement. His sister was driving him to pick it up, and he didn't stop talking about the car most of the way there.
They arrived at the house in good time. He filled in his details on the form, quickly purchased road tax from the post office, and finally got back to the house and thanked the previous owner. A lady who had kept the car well for over six years. She now owned a Toyota Celica, and her daughter, a Civic Type-R. True Japanese motor enthusiasts. Daniel finally said goodbye and lowered himself into the mr2's cockpit.
The engine roared behind him just a second after he turned the key. The engine leapt to 1,800rpm, but quickly settled to just under 950rpm. It pleased him to hear such mechanical perfection mere feet behind his head. The clutch bit at a very comfortable point, and reminded him it was only fitted the previous year and had done very low mileage since. He pulled the mr2 out of the drive and away from its old home, the rain quickly covering the windscreen like tears of sorrow.
He had set off without learning how to turn on the various instruments, but luckily it was a quiet road and it was just he and his sister making their way along it. He instinctively found the windscreen wipers at his left finger tips, and the dipped lights to his right. Finally he was on his way.
His moment had arrived but he had resolved to drive with great caution in the conditions, and after filling up with petrol he was on his way. After fifty miles of motorway driving, he let his window down while driving through that great tunnel beneath the Thames, to hear the induction manifold sucking in air with an almost turbo quality, and the exhaust rumbling like thunder. He had never been so happy.
That is until he hit the local A-Roads, and suddenly found himself in a retail park. He deliberately took a wrong turn towards a known quiet road, with a nicely curved roundabout and great visibility all around. He dropped into second gear, steered to the left, then gave a good amount of throttle as he steered back to the right. The wet road meant it took little effort to drift the sexy beast around the roundabout. He was soon on his way back out of the retail park, and on his way home. Of course, not without the obligatory stop at a McDonald’s to treat his sister to lunch, and to take photos of his new pride and joy in the car park.
They had completed their first miles together. Now as they began their final leg home, he realised he loved this machine, and stroked the wheel affectionately, hoping she would one day feel the same.
My new ride - 1995 Toyota MR-2 GTi T-Bar by danjama, on Flickr
My new ride - 1995 Toyota MR-2 GTi T-Bar by danjama, on Flickr
My new ride - 1995 Toyota MR-2 GTi T-Bar by danjama, on Flickr
My new ride - 1995 Toyota MR-2 GTi T-Bar by danjama, on Flickr
We had our first scary moment earlier, I wasn't paying attention to the road as I played with the heating, and had to stop very quickly at a zebra crossing. The woman shook her head disapprovingly, but I quickly pulled alongside her as she walked and stopped to say sorry. She looked genuinely surprised and grateful that I had stopped to apologise and said so with words, and the world felt like a good place again.
Hello everyone, allow me your attention for a while, and maybe even your imagination. Today I picked up my dream car.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Daniel was a strict car fanatic, even at the age of seven. Every time his mum took him anywhere, he would have to have a new toy car to add to his collection. Usually a matchbox, with the name of the car engraved in the plastic bottom. That's how he matched the shapes of the cars with their names, when spotting real cars on journeys. He and his Mum would make a game out of it, seeing who could recognise the most cars. She loved playing this game, despite them playing it on almost every journey.
One day he decided on his favourite toy car, and he wouldn't stop playing with it. When he joined his friend Christopher at his house across the road, they would play with their cars, pretending the living room carpet represented a vast city space. They used to swap cars a lot, but Daniel wouldn't let Christopher play with his favourite. A bright red Toyota mr2.
Being Daniels favourite, he would leap with joy whenever he spotted an mr2 on the open road. Even more so if it was red, but the colour was of little importance when he spotted one of these machines. He became obsessed with them, and would twist his neck violently even at the hint of a red car, often to be disappointed by some dull German or British design instead.
Later on, he would enjoy driving a Toyota mr2 on the virtual roads of Gran Turismo on his Playstation. His family didn't have a lot of money, and never did, so he was flabbergasted and overjoyed when he found a Playstation with Gran Turismo under his Christmas tree. Even his sisters were jealous, and they were spoilt rotten. So from then on, he and Chris from across the road would play Gran Turismo, each enjoying the challenge of passing a new licence test or beating the other in a race around Trial Mountain or some other track from someone’s imagination. Daniel would always pick his mr2, and almost always win.
Soon he grew up, and forgot about the car that ruled all cars. He became interested in other things. Sport, girls, music, films and just about anything that his friends steered him towards. He still loved cars but they took a back seat for now. In his late teenage years, he fell on some hard times and struggled through school. He left school and found work. Not very good work, but work. And with the girls and the sports and the music all out of his system, and with a little bit of money in his pockets, he finally got his driving license.
He was reminded of something by a friend. The friend drove a car with a certain level of lunacy, and made a whooshing noise as he went through the gears. He knew the car from his hundreds of hours playing Gran Turismo. A Nissan Skyline GT-R. The R33 model. He was extremely jealous, and after the journey, something was now niggling at the back of his mind. It came to him as he stared at his own vehicle, a burnt orange Ford Fiesta 1.4, on his driveway. The R33 reminded him of his own Japanese dream machine. The old Toyota mr2. The thought of it filled him with great nostalgia. Surely people don't still drive them?
No sooner had he got home and flung his shoes off, than he was scouring the internet, feasting on the hundreds of examples up for sale. He pored over them for hours, applying his passion for vintage aircraft research to his search for the perfect mr2. Most of the ones he looked at were the wrong colour, in bad condition, abused, too modified, too turbo. So he went to bed disappointed but not defeated.
After work the next day, he started searching again with fresh eyes and a hopeful heart. His fingers tingled as he hovered the mouse over an advert on Pistonheads. He clicked. He read. He opened the photos, and scrolled through them slowly and with purpose. This was the mr2 for him.
He immediately put his car up for sale on several internet sites, and through word of mouth. He had to get rid of it as soon as possible before the perfect mr2 was sold. There was hope. The car was some distance away, in a very small village, so hopefully fewer people would look at it. He sat at his computer each day after work, refreshing e-bay and his email account, waiting for someone to make an offer. It took just over three weeks for his orange Fiesta to be taken off his hands. It sold after he spent four hours cleaning the bodywork and interior, then uploading the pictures, showing the car to its full potential. Then he made the dreaded phone call.
“Hello, is that Marianne?”
“Yes...”
“Is the mr2 still for sale?”
…
“Sorry the line broke up” she says.
“Is your mr2 still available?”
“Yes, still here. Would you like to come and have a look?”
Err, yes, just a little bit! He thought.
The very next day he employed the help of a friend and drove the 60+ miles to view the mr2 immediately after work. As the miles fell away he felt great anticipation. It was a long way to drive, just to be disappointed. It was not to be.
The car looked in even better condition in real life. It looked smaller than he remembered, in the days when he used to spot them from his mums Escort window. But it looked taut and purposeful. Made for him. He hoped the test drive would be everything he felt was owed to him.
Nothing could have prepared him for the growl of the 2.0L engine sitting very closely behind his head. His host, the owner of the vehicle, turned onto a country road but instead of shifting up to second gear, she kept it in first all the way to 30mph, then into 2nd gear, and suddenly they were sitting at 50mph. Still accelerating, they were at 70mph in some very short seconds. The mr2 ate the road up. It was set up beautifully on aftermarket alloy wheels and some very close to stock tyres. Just how he wanted it to be. At the top of the long road, they turned around with a little kick of wheel spin. Now they were flying back the other way. This time he tried to pay some attention to her hands and feet, to gain some idea of the vehicles mechanical condition. He was quickly distracted by that noise behind his head, and some very interesting turns in second gear. They were soon parked up and he was thanking his host, then he was almost home, still with the drive dominating his thoughts.
He had to have it. But would it be as good if it was his? What if the noise and the shove was only so good because he was a passenger, enjoying his first ride in one? He wouldn't know for sure for another week. He wanted it. Bad. The next day he arranged for a deposit and a pick up day. Less than one week, on the following Monday.
The waiting game would not be pleasant. He went to view another m2, to have something to compare to. It was extremely impressive, but wasn't the car for him. He knew the red mr2 was his. So he counted the days and then the hours, thinking only about his mr2. He even enjoyed arranging the insurance the day before, finally realising that the dream was about to come true. In one sleeps time, he would be the proud owner of a mint condition, Red, Toyota mr2.
He went to bed early that night, no longer able to watch the hours crawl along, and he quickly fell into a heavy sleep.
He woke up to some extremely interesting weather. Side gusts of some knots, heavy rain and deep puddles that might also be called ponds. Driving a powerful, rear-engined, rear- wheel drive car home would test his driving unlike the Fiesta ever could. He knew he was inexperienced, but trusted his knowledge and skill, aided by years of playing racing games on computers.
The anticipation was even greater than when he went to view the car. Now it was HIS mr2. He could barely contain his excitement. His sister was driving him to pick it up, and he didn't stop talking about the car most of the way there.
They arrived at the house in good time. He filled in his details on the form, quickly purchased road tax from the post office, and finally got back to the house and thanked the previous owner. A lady who had kept the car well for over six years. She now owned a Toyota Celica, and her daughter, a Civic Type-R. True Japanese motor enthusiasts. Daniel finally said goodbye and lowered himself into the mr2's cockpit.
The engine roared behind him just a second after he turned the key. The engine leapt to 1,800rpm, but quickly settled to just under 950rpm. It pleased him to hear such mechanical perfection mere feet behind his head. The clutch bit at a very comfortable point, and reminded him it was only fitted the previous year and had done very low mileage since. He pulled the mr2 out of the drive and away from its old home, the rain quickly covering the windscreen like tears of sorrow.
He had set off without learning how to turn on the various instruments, but luckily it was a quiet road and it was just he and his sister making their way along it. He instinctively found the windscreen wipers at his left finger tips, and the dipped lights to his right. Finally he was on his way.
His moment had arrived but he had resolved to drive with great caution in the conditions, and after filling up with petrol he was on his way. After fifty miles of motorway driving, he let his window down while driving through that great tunnel beneath the Thames, to hear the induction manifold sucking in air with an almost turbo quality, and the exhaust rumbling like thunder. He had never been so happy.
That is until he hit the local A-Roads, and suddenly found himself in a retail park. He deliberately took a wrong turn towards a known quiet road, with a nicely curved roundabout and great visibility all around. He dropped into second gear, steered to the left, then gave a good amount of throttle as he steered back to the right. The wet road meant it took little effort to drift the sexy beast around the roundabout. He was soon on his way back out of the retail park, and on his way home. Of course, not without the obligatory stop at a McDonald’s to treat his sister to lunch, and to take photos of his new pride and joy in the car park.
They had completed their first miles together. Now as they began their final leg home, he realised he loved this machine, and stroked the wheel affectionately, hoping she would one day feel the same.
My new ride - 1995 Toyota MR-2 GTi T-Bar by danjama, on Flickr
My new ride - 1995 Toyota MR-2 GTi T-Bar by danjama, on Flickr
My new ride - 1995 Toyota MR-2 GTi T-Bar by danjama, on Flickr
My new ride - 1995 Toyota MR-2 GTi T-Bar by danjama, on Flickr
We had our first scary moment earlier, I wasn't paying attention to the road as I played with the heating, and had to stop very quickly at a zebra crossing. The woman shook her head disapprovingly, but I quickly pulled alongside her as she walked and stopped to say sorry. She looked genuinely surprised and grateful that I had stopped to apologise and said so with words, and the world felt like a good place again.
