"original" mr2

[paulmannion]

It's so frustrating to read sellers claiming cars are original or unmolested or "insert your vague term to describe it's never had any work" when it's complete rubbish.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1986-TOYOTA-MR2-Mk1-RARE-BLACK-TOTALLY-ORIGINAL-AND-UNMOLESTED-88K-/271629054291

This car has clearly been resprayed. The bumpers are a different colour and it doesn't the strips running down the sides.

On a positive note it's great to see a pretty average car with 90,000 miles going for several thousand, and not hundred, pounds.

[coverco]

Oh oh can of worms alert :-)

[Sweetpea]

Ooh it's a black one like mine...

You are correct that the bump strips are missing but the bumpers are correct. On Black MK1a cars the bumpers were totally unpainted for some mad reason. Strangely the eyebrows under the headlights seem to have been painted on the black ones though. At least they are on mine and seem to be on this one.

That said, £4000? Hmmm. Mine cost £80. I could begrudgingly concede that mine is not in quite such good condition. Maybe. But only if you looked closely.

I like the 'Black is a factory option' line. What happened to the other colours then? They came here unpainted and the dealers used rattle cans just before the customer drove it away?

James

[paulmannion]

That's interesting to know James! I haven't seen a black one before to be fair. And although mine is silver it has been resprayed in its life before I got it so I don't know what's original and what isn't!

[AW11mike]

That's interesting to know James! I haven't seen a black one before to be fair. And although mine is silver it has been resprayed in its life before I got it so I don't know what's original and what isn't!I dont think mine is original mate! but there is no other like it!:)

[Fab4mr2]

Not to drag a thread back from the dead, but '86 MKIa bumpers were indeed painted, and matched the paint of the rest of the body. Unfortunately, the paint Toyota used for their black cars was terrible, and the flex agent added to the paint for use on the bumpers quite possibly added to their early fading, as the bumpers on the black MKI's usually go to poo well ahead of the rest of the car.

The odd case with this car is that everything but the bumpers appears to have been painted. The bumpers are merely looking their age, and the headlight eyebrows are obviously in a bit better condition, or newer, as they look to be in pretty good shape yet, and still quite black. Look at the lower front as well. They repainted the front lower air dam area, and apparently taped it out to the front edge of the front fenders, as you can easily see the line of matte black paint across the lower front of the front qp's. Guess they used a heavier protective paint down front and wanted to protect that part of the qp's as well since they amass rock chips quite quickly as well. Another oddity is that they have possibly changed the rear wing, as it has the colored pinstriping from a later MKIb. It should match the pinstriping on the bumpers, or what's left of it anyway, lol. I was actually wondering if they might have put dark blue wing on there, as you can't really tell from the pics.

I've got the same exact US version as this car, and though the paint on mine wasn't taken care of that well by the previous owners, I love the all back look for that year. Because certain things like the door handles, outside mirrors and a couple of other exterior parts were left black on all '86 MKIa's, the black one is the only '86 that is actually completely color coded on the outside. That makes it the earliest standard release complete color coded MKI. :-) I'm working to make the interior of mine all black as well. Just need to switch the headliner and sunroof shade, and I'll be set. Actually all I've had to do so far is to install the black (sort of black/grey checkered actually) seats from an '89 SC, and it made it look much better, especially since the original black/silver seats were getting on in years. It works with the black exterior, but might not come off as well with some of the other '86 colors.

[Sweetpea]

Bumpers painted!? Good God I think you are right! And I'd completely convinced myself that they weren't painted.
Mine has the pin stripe on the spoiler too so I suspect that's normal.

Anyway, you've made me a happy chappy.
I'm on nights at the moment but sometime next week I'll explain further.

James

[Fab4mr2]

Yes, definitely painted, plus the black '86's have somewhat unique pinstriping in that they have only a somewhat narrow grey over light purple (or whatever color) striping all the way around the car. Even the eagle on the rear bumper, which is missing on this particular car, is a shade of those two colors. The side moldings also have that combination of striping. Unfortunately, even the striping on the bumper tends to fade quite a bit, along with the paint, and it will all start to turn whitish grey over time. Much of it on my bumpers has gone that direction sadly. Another touch that mine and some of the other black '86's have is a very narrow twin stripe of the same coloring along the top side edges, which was probably added by the dealers. It uniquely twists and reverses colors for the last few inches at the rear, and also dovetails downward for a couple of inches at the very back corner of the rear qp's, which I think makes that different from how any other year had that extra upper edge pinstriping done.

I found more of these black '86's, with all the aero effects, than I expected while looking for a replacement car this last year, and they all have suffered significant paint fading of one sort or another. Toyota seems to have used clear coating on at least some of the paint on these black cars as well, since the lower side aero pieces on mine show heavy signs of flaking, but only those areas. The rest of the car just has faded paint here and there. It can actually look fairly decent if heavily buffed, but it doesn't last that long. :-(

I also found a number of black MKIb's while looking for a new car, and was surprised to see that even most of those suffer from a bit of paint fade as well. Toyota apparently did not use the best of black paint on any of the MKI's, and you have to find a fairly pampered car over here to find one with even half decent black paint these days.

[Sweetpea]

Here's why I believed the Black MK1a bumpers were unpainted...
This is the one that was ripped off my car.

http://www.mr2mk1club.com/images/imported/2015/01/16105651199_9d383e8a26_b-1.jpg

It doesn't look like paint to me! There is no lifting of the clear coat, no major crazing as the plastic flexed, and it looks the same as the unpainted back side. I can't even see any evidence of the metallic fleck that's evident in the rest of the car. After much thought and puzzling I came to the conclusion that Toyota didn't bother to paint them.

However... If you look round the edge of the indicator bucket you can see where the paint has worn through. So, yes, they really are painted but they have stood the passage of time really badly. Really really badly.

You can also see the silver over red (I guess that was probably the colours) striping that should be on the car. Reproducing that'll be a challenge for another day. One day I might get some decent photos and make a "Standard Black Trim" thread for crazy people like me that are interested in such things.

And the reason that I'm happy the bumpers are painted is this.
My rear bumper looks ok but not outstanding. The front one was destroyed when it was ripped off the car and the replacement is blue (previously red). The chances of getting the paint off the front one and returning it to plastic is zero. The chances of getting 30 year old plastic on the back to look right is also zero. So realistically I was going to have to paint them and this is what I wanted to do 'cos it'll look great. But there was always a niggle that Toyota didn't seem to paint them and for me to do so would be wrong.

But now I find Toyota did paint them and I can do the same. Happy days!

I'm mad, yes, thank you, I already knew that.

[HowardB]

No, not mad, it's just called having a hobby! I've just shelled out a tenner for rising sun logo tyre valve caps . . . !?!

[Fab4mr2]

Here's why I believed the Black MK1a bumpers were unpainted...
This is the one that was ripped off my car.


It doesn't look like paint to me! There is no lifting of the clear coat, no major crazing as the plastic flexed, and it looks the same as the unpainted back side. I can't even see any evidence of the metallic fleck that's evident in the rest of the car. After much thought and puzzling I came to the conclusion that Toyota didn't bother to paint them.

However... If you look round the edge of the indicator bucket you can see where the paint has worn through. So, yes, they really are painted but they have stood the passage of time really badly. Really really badly.

You can also see the silver over red (I guess that was probably the colours) striping that should be on the car. Reproducing that'll be a challenge for another day. One day I might get some decent photos and make a "Standard Black Trim" thread for crazy people like me that are interested in such things.

And the reason that I'm happy the bumpers are painted is this.
My rear bumper looks ok but not outstanding. The front one was destroyed when it was ripped off the car and the replacement is blue (previously red). The chances of getting the paint off the front one and returning it to plastic is zero. The chances of getting 30 year old plastic on the back to look right is also zero. So realistically I was going to have to paint them and this is what I wanted to do 'cos it'll look great. But there was always a niggle that Toyota didn't seem to paint them and for me to do so would be wrong.

But now I find Toyota did paint them and I can do the same. Happy days!

I'm mad, yes, thank you, I already knew that.
Hard to get a complete idea of what your bumper looks like from that close up, but it certainly looks bad. Probably about as bad as they get. Yes, the bumpers fade and deteriorate differently than the rest of the body. I am not sure though that Toyota used clear coat on the entire body either, at least not on the bumpers, as mine only shows clear coat flaking on certain portions of the body, yet there is serious paint deterioration on a number of different parts.

At least what remains of your bumper pinstriping shows that it is the original bumper. As for paint crazing, you won't see much of it on original MKI bumpers of any year or color, as Toyota did at least it seems use a high quality of paint flex agent on them. I've had other cars repainted, also with flex agent for the bumpers, and they were nowhere near as immune to spider cracks from bumper collisions.

As for the metallic flecks you see elsewhere, are you sure about that, or could the rest of the body have been repainted, as the regular '86's did not use metallic paint to my knowledge. Only the 'Black Limited' got metallic paint for that year.

Good luck on the eventual repaint and re-striping. I hope to do the same myself eventually, and will probably look up a professional shop to help match the pinstriping as I would very much like to maintain that, since it is a bit unique and looks quite good in my opinion.

[Sweetpea]

Rising sun valve caps? I like that idea. One day I'll show you all what I came up with for my 4A-GE sticker for the belt cover...

Mine is paint code 204 if I remember rightly. This site (http://www.toyotareference.com/mr2/1985-1989) claims that's a metallic. I also found a Toyota Service Bulletin that said it was clear coated which would have been an odd thing to do in the 80s unless it was a metallic.

As for seeing the fleck in the paint, yes I'm sure I did, very very subtle though. That said the car hasn't been washed since 2007 so I could be mistaken. My Restoration Project Schedule says a good wash and polish is due in the 3rd quarter of 2017 so I'll take a better look and get back to you then.

[Fab4mr2]

Interesting. Maybe they actually used different paint for different destinations. I'll have to double check on ours here.

I see you have the same wash and wax schedule that I use, lol.

As for the clear coat, I know some mid release MKI's definitely used clear coat simply because I have seen evidence of it in pics of many different cars. Some black ones, at least from later years, used it as well, but for some strange reason only my lower side trim shows evidence of it.

[Sweetpea]

I can't believe they'd have used different paints in different markets. Not with the same code. The link below is for the US market anyway.

This (http://gcia.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/T-CRIB-0006-W.pdf) shows 204 as being metallic and clear coated.
I have to admit I thought it would be flat black and easy to blow over and blend. I did swear a bit when I found it was a metallic and I'd probably have to do complete panels.

Like I say, I'd have to wash the car to be certain there is fleck in it.

[Fab4mr2]

Well, that certainly appears to be the correct code, and other sites claim the same one, including http://www.toyotareference.com/mr2/1985-1989, which I usually go to for this stuff. It's just that I have never noticed any metallic fleck on any of the black MKI's that I have seen, including mine. Guess I'll have to take a much closer look at mine tomorrow, lol.