Stephen Court (scourt@electra.com.au)

Location: Brisbane, Australia
     Car: 12/1991 MkII Turbo (Super-Red)
 Mileage: 75K km 19-Dec-96

Geez, these turbo MR2's are getting popular!  I can't believe that they weren't 
brought into Australia by Toyota originally.  However, there seems to be a pretty 
bad phobia about owning a second-hand imported car.  I'm not sure whether that is 
due to the (assumed) lack of spare parts, or the fact that if the car doesn't have 
a Australian Design Rule (ADR) compliance plate then the government have the 
authority to confiscate it!!!!

Admittedly, there has been a lot of illegal importations... which make the public 
get that general "Don't buy an imported car" feeling. :(

Rest assured, I made sure that my car was to be 100% legal.

The process of getting my car was kind of interesting... and kind of scary.
I started by contacting the Federal Office of Road Safety (FORS) in Canberra, to 
get a list of authorised "small vehicle manufacturers" who are eligible to modify 
the imported vehicle to meet the Australian Design Rules (ADR's).  According to the 
list, there seems to be only 2 companies in Australia - one in Sydney, and one on 
the Gold Coast.  This guy gave me the name of a reputable importer, and away I went.

How could I go wrong ? ... I was convinced... I had to have one :)

I used to refer to my car as "my little red rocket", but now that I've gotten used 
to the speed...  I guess I now call it "my red cruise-mobile".

I haven't done any modifications to the car yet.  I have difficulty parting with 
large quantities of cash for "bolt-on bits", I much prefer to do the work myself.
Does anyone else hear that voice in the back of your head saying "How hard could it 
be ????".  What makes it worse is that I'm an electronics engineer.  I look at 
things like the HKS stuff, and wonder to myself... "I could do that".

Just to set your mind at rest, I'm  not a total dreamer... I have designed things 
previously for my friends racecars and stuff (programmable EFI controller, programmable 
ignition controller, pneumatic-shift gearbox controller etc.) but they were all 
prototypes that would require alot more work before I could go and give one to every 
MR2 owner.  As a very cool co-incedence, I work for a company that develops diagnostice 
equipment for vehicles with EFI etc.  Check out the products at our web-site: 

http://www.electra.com.au

I am reasonably keen to kickstart my list of projects off again, so if anyone has 
any comments, or suggestions... drop me a line.

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Last Update: Monday 30-Dec-96 20:52:01

Geoff Seeley (geoff@mr2.com)