For decades, mid-engine sports cars occupied a very exclusive corner of the automotive world. The layout was typically reserved for machines wearing exotic badges from Italy or Britain, often carrying intimidating price tags, complicated ownership experiences, and supercar-like reputations. Then Toyota changed everything. When the Toyota MR2 arrived in the mid-1980s, it introduced ordinary buyers to something that previously felt completely out of reach: an affordable mid-engine sports car built with Japanese reliability.

Source: https://www.topspeed.com/toyota-mr2-gave-everyday-drivers-exotic-engineering/