But if you're remotely "Tall", it's probably not your best bet.
Agreed, I don't think people realize just how tight those small lightweight sports cars are inside. I'm like 5'5" and 130lbs so I don't have these issues, however if you're like 5'8"-6'0" or above you'll have to forget about certain cars. How tight are we talking with these small sports cars? Here's a picture of a guy sitting in a friend's first-gen MR2.
Big dudes fitting into tiny clown cars never loses its humor! Anyways, the most important thing here is to be honest with yourself about the car you want, why you want it, and what you're actually going to do with it. I'd love to have a hardcore track weapon with plates (like a stripped E30 M3 with a 3.2L swap or something), but since the closest road course is over 3 hours away I know that realistically it would be a waste of money and I'd never get to really enjoy the car for what it is. I may live out in the backwoods but the surrounding area has people on top of each other, the traffic is annoying, there are lots of lights, and the good driving roads go the opposite direction of any place where deer do not outnumber people. It takes me 20 minutes to get to closest fast food joint, 15 of those will be spent going from red light to red light, a 750hp Supra with a huge single turbo is going to suck because there's nowhere to spool it up and go. A nice 300-400hp V8 with torque to jump off the line is the way to have fun here (found that out the hard way), sure I'd love to own that S2000 but in reality I'd hate leaving my driveway in it knowing that high-revving motor is a pain to get moving in traffic and having a great chassis in bumper-to-bumper traffic is like going to a strip club to look at the bartender. Don't just buy something you want, buy something you can have fun in!👍
However, just because you have fun driving it does not mean you will have fun owning it!
Your brain is incapable of understanding the amount of fun you can have in an MR2 until you've driven one. As mentioned above, I knew a guy with a first-gen that he bought for cheap. The problem was that cheap MR2 was practically falling apart, the time and money invested into repairing the years of carelessly abusive morons the car endured prior was enormous. Nice ones will be at the high end of your budget and they're worth the money. One of the major downsides to this car is when you actually have to fix it: if you think your car has a stupidly designed thing like an oil filter next to a hot exhaust pipe, a drain plug that points directly at something guaranteed to make a mess when the fluid hits it, etc then I assure you thinking that design is stupid is merely because you have yet to own an MR2. Pretty much anything you'll ever need to repair is completely inaccessible without tearing half the car apart. When changing the fuel filter involves removing the battery, you really have to wonder what you're getting yourself into with this car if those two things are anywhere near each other.
