It was more than 35 years ago, but Jim Harrison can still remember the date, and time, when he was told he would have to give up his company car, a Toyota MR2 he had quickly grown to love.
“I was made redundant at quarter past four on Thursday, December 15, 1988,” he says. “We had to wait until 5pm for the pubs to open.”
Jim was working in the City as a stockbroker and, while he was understandably upset at losing his job, he says he was “distraught at losing the car, because it meant so much”.
“I’m like that – if I like something, I keep it.”
But this story has a happy ending, because sitting outside Jim’s Essex home is that very Blue Mica MR2 that he first bought with his company car allowance back in January 1987.
“I got my redundancy pay packet and I was sitting with my wife Linda and she said ‘well, we’ll buy it’,” he remembers. “I said ‘we can’t do that’, but she said ‘we can always sell it if we need to’, so we bought it.
“It was her decision, not mine. I think she felt the same way, but she knew what it meant to me.”
And it’s been with Jim ever since, its continued presence taking on even more poignancy after Linda passed away a decade ago.
“It means everything,” he says. “It’s a pet, and it’s just emotional because of my wife, who loved the car.”
Jim, now 70, passed his driving test at 17 in January 1972, when his dad had a Ford Prefect waiting for him.
“By the time I’d passed my test my dad had got another car, so I had his ‘58 Austin A35 instead, which was a wonderful little thing,” he says. “I’d driven the A35 when learning and felt at ease in it, so we gave the Prefect to my cousin.”
Things moved up a gear or two after the A35 with a Triumph Vitesse, followed by a Ford Cortina 1600E, “a fabulous, beautiful car, that had already seen some renovation, but rust got to it in the end”.
It was replaced by a standard MkII Cortina, but then came the opportunity for Jim to buy his first company car.
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He remembers having seen a red MR2 in the car park in 1986.
“I thought it looked like a mini Ferrari,” he says. “I looked at Linda and said ‘wow, that’s lovely isn’t it, but you wouldn’t buy it with your own money, would you?’ Because it was a lot of money. “So when the company gave me an allowance to go and buy a car, well, I thought ‘I’ll have one’.”
On a snowy Saturday in December 1986, Jim and his father, along with Linda, turned up at Tony Evans Toyota dealership just off the A12.
“This chap said ‘get the car out’, and I said ‘but it’s slushy and snowy’, and he said ‘no, it’s all right’, and they let me take it out on my own in the slush and the rain, which I thought was a bit strange,” he remembers.
“I only went round the block and back again, then I walked in and said ‘come on, office’, and we bought it.”
There was no need to order a car and hang about for months waiting for delivery, because the brand new Blue Mica MR2 was pretty much ready to go.
“The reason it was in the showroom was because it was blue, and people wanted white ones and red ones,” says Jim, “but it’s a bit different because it’s got the little mica chips in it.
“I think it’s a better colour – in the sunshine, it sparkles. It’s beautiful.”
The car was delivered on January 26, and Jim describes the “out of this world” feeling of his first proper drive in Toyota’s mid-engined, rear-wheel-drive marvel.
“It was just sublime, like nothing you’ve ever driven in your life before,” he says. “In my childhood years, dad had a motorcycle with a large sidecar which held my mother and myself. “Riding in that was quite exciting as you were much closer to the road than in a car, and travelling in the MR2, especially as a passenger with Linda driving, brought back those childhood memories. You were so close to the road and seemed to be going much faster than you actually were!”
Jim had driven sporty cars before, but both the 1600E and Vitesse were souped-up versions of standard saloon cars.
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“They were sporty by engine, but did not have the sports suspension of the Toyota,” he adds. “This instantly gave a much more stable, solid feel on the road. It was a sports car with a saloon feel, it didn’t rattle or shake about. With the added support of the seat design, cornering was firm with not a hint of the usual roll.
“The clutch and gearbox were slick, with the short gear stick giving that real sports car feel. That was a new and exciting experience.
“The steering was responsive and precise as it was still a manual operation, no power assistance. You get it out of the garage now and think ‘blimey, what’s wrong with this?’ The steering really is hard work until it gets going.”
With Jim commuting into the City on the train, the Toyota was purely a weekend car in the early days, and Linda – “a great driver” – had to be persuaded to get behind the wheel.
“She wouldn’t drive it – she said ‘it goes too fast’,” he says. “I said ‘it only goes as fast as you tell it to’. So in the end, at 8am one weekend morning I told her ‘we’re going to go to the A12, come on’.
“We’re going along and I said ‘how does it feel?’ She said ‘it’s marvellous, lovely’. ‘Does it go too fast?’ She said ‘no’ and I asked her ‘is that why we’re doing 80mph?’ She loved it as much as I did after that.
“I admit that I don’t drive it the way it’s supposed to be driven. I don’t like speed, and I don’t throw it round corners – in fact, my tyres degrade rather than wear out.
“And driving it demanded extra concentration, as you were so small in traffic. Lorries, especially, didn’t see you on motorways or roundabouts, demanding constant vigilance of other drivers’ behaviour. But that was a small price to pay for driving such a wonderful car.”
Having bought the MR2 following his redundancy, it was used more frequently while he undertook stints as a wine salesman, postman, and Royal Mail delivery office manager.
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“It was used for everything,” he says. “In those days Linda used to take her mother to Cornwall for two weeks, and I used to have a week off and join them for the second week.
“So it went down to Cornwall quite a few times, and up to Newcastle to a friend’s wedding. It’s always been a very used car – it’s been coddled because it’s been looked after, but it’s not been sat in the garage.”
About 25 years ago, however, it very nearly ceased to exist at all when Jim took a trip north to visit his father in Norfolk.
“I did all the usual things, checked the tyres and water, and it needed a little drop of oil so I put some oil in,” he recalls.
“Off I went, on my own, and as I joined the A12 from the slip road, I looked to see what was coming and there were plumes of smoke coming out of the back.
“Fortunately, within a few yards there was a layby right by the side of the road, and I stopped, got out, opened the bonnet and there were flames coming up from the bottom of the engine bay.
“The first thing I said was ‘sorry’, which sounds stupid, and then I thought ‘are you going to blow up? What’s going to happen?’
“Just at that minute, an articulated lorry came past and, because of the draft, it blew the fire out.
“Then I saw the little oil cap still sitting on the engine, looking at me. I hadn’t put it back on and there was oil everywhere – it was a mess.”
Concerned at what damage had been done, Jim called the RAC.
“The chap turned up and said ‘it’s the only car fire I’ve ever been called to where it’s still a car’,” he says. “He was the most wonderful man. He said it hadn’t burned anything, and we found somewhere not far away to pull off the road more safely. He then cleaned the engine for ages, filled it up with oil, it ran fine, and off I went. It purred up to Norfolk, and it’s purred ever since.”
In the course of the car’s 122,000 miles, it has been as reliable as you’d expect of a Toyota, with parts like the clutch, water pump, and bulbs replaced as usual wear and tear dictates.
Apart from the wheel arches, which have been replaced twice in the MR2’s 38 years, Jim says the rest of the car is “completely and utterly original”.
“The second time they needed repairing, my mechanic suggested a man in Scarborough who had the correct jig and the actual steel, and he made them specially – which is why they look as perfect as they do now,” he adds. “That’s the only paint it’s had.”
In 1992, Jim was offered a job back in the City, and was again given a company car allowance, this time opting for a blue Toyota Carina E 2.0 GTi, instantly becoming “Big Blue” to the MR2’s “Little Blue”.
Once again, he and Linda fell in love with the car, and bought it when Jim was made redundant from the City again three years later.
“Again, it had become a pet and it meant something,” says Jim. “It was Linda’s favourite car, and that’s why I’ve got to keep that going.”
There’s also a 20-year-old Toyota Yaris on the drive, which belonged to Jim’s father for the first 10 years of its life, and a Ford Fiesta ST bought a year ago.
“They’re all pets, and they will all last as long as I will,” he says.
Of the four, “Little Blue” is the one that has bagged the prime garage slot, and Jim – who joined the MR2 Drivers’ Club 35 years ago – rarely lets it out of his sight when it’s not tucked away inside.
“I don’t take it very far these days, and I don’t leave it anywhere I can’t see it,” he says. “I wouldn’t park it in the town centre and go shopping, no chance.”
When he last checked, he was one of just three MR2 club members in the UK to have owned their MkI car from new, a record he plans to extend for as long as he can.
“I can’t imagine being without it,” he says.
