
Toyota MR2 (SW20)
Reference — shown, never scored
Why 7.6: Mid-engine balance at hatchback money, plus the famous snap-oversteer curriculum. Still cheap enough to be driven like Toyota intended — the affordable mid-engine slot nothing modern fills.
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · $8k (2000) → $40k (2026), trending up · illustrative data
The long version
Nobody buys an SW20 to park it — values are still low enough that owning one is a decision measured in weekend track-day fees, not appreciation math. It has become an unofficial finishing school for lift-off oversteer, a car a lot of drivers learn a hard lesson from once and then either sell cheap or keep forever out of respect. The community skews toward people who wrench their own timing belts and would rather spend the savings on tires than paint correction — a mid-engine chassis treated like the beater it was always priced to be.