Is this worth £9000…I’ve no idea. Being advertised by, in effect, Autolink…
It’s rare and if in good condition, which it will be from Autolink, then I guess it is.
Rarer than a Le Mans, and how much are they going for?
1 Like
The price is plus VAT. Or maybe not.
Here it is plus VAT (making it an £11k mk1
But here £9k incl VAT
Imported 2-3 years ago. The Tokyo Limited is an interesting car. Technically it wasn’t a factory edition. It was a special order by a Tokyo Eunos dealer (hence Tokyo Limited) when the 1.8 moel came out in 1993. At the time, you could only buy a black Eunos Roadster if it was a V-Special (tan leather) or S-Special (Bilstein suspension, BBS wheels). This dealer got Mazda to make him a batch of essentially S-Package cars in black (equivalent to the UK 1.8iS), so they came with the power mirrors and windows, but I think Torsen was an option (and a fair few of those 1993 1.8s had open diffs). The numbers built is uncertain; its either 40 or 48, half of them manual and half automatic. The party trick was the interior.Mazda used left over interior parts from the 1.6 M2-1002 (which had a planned run of 300 cars, but the plug was pulled at 100). Its not exactly the 1002 interior. The seats are certainly 1.8 seats (which have a different belly pan to 1.6 cars); Mazda probably asked their supplier to switch the 1002 skins to the 1.8 seat (needed a nick in the leather). Similarly the carpet; the 1002 had a lusurious deep pile cream carpet (a nightmare to keep clean). The 1.6 carpet isn’t exactly the same as the 1.8, due to how the seatbelt latches are mounted on the transmission tunnel; whether Mazda just made the additional hole and left the 1.6 hole alone, I’m not sure.
The door cards; the tops are the same, and on the 1002, these were leather. The lowers use the same cream leatherette, but I’m not sure the cards are the same. In the 1002, the windows had manual winders, and the leather door grip was fitted to a completely different position to stock (it was quite dainty, I don’t think the later grip would fit to the holes). In the brochure for the car, you get a hint that they plugged the hole for the winder somehow.
Brochure produced by the dealer:
But this is not in evidence on any of the Tokyos I have seen over here (there are a few, including at least one fake). So I think a new door card was used. The dash is cream leather upholstered over a tan V-Spec dash, with the blue alcantara top. The M2-1002s also went for a console delete look; the Tokyos obviously have a centre console.
This walk around video of one for sale in Japan a few years ago shows most clearly what these looked like unmondified (the only change the owner made was to removed the rubber horn cover on the factory Momo steering wheel)
And my 1002, midway through restoration
The Autolink car; I thought in the flesh it was reasonable at the last OC Rally.
In this image, the drivers seat looks to have a bit of a split in it
But, in what looks like a later shot, the seat looks like it has been reupholstered (looks a bit loose around the headrest; the original leather was ivory with a gloss finish (I had a M2-1002 for a while)… The seat furniture now looks more grey, than cream, has the whole seat been changed and painted? Or maybe a trick of the light
I have to say, it looks filthy inside, but the cream is hard to maintain.
Is it worth £11k? One of the reasons why a few of thse have ended up in the UK is that they don’t seem to fetch that much over in Japan, compared to the other specials. The first Tokyo I came across was sitting on the docks at Southampton. The dealer thought he had imported a V-Special, so it can’t have gone for crazy money… Recently I saw one, in good order, sell for about half of what the other special editions (VR-Limited etc) were getting (sold for 304k yen in March, grade 3.5, grade B interior, less money as what an R-grade 1.6 with the same miles went for on the same day). Which would be about £4k landed, tax paid).
This is a bit of a nerd’s car, in my view; its not a collectable, just a curiousity.
£9k (or £11k) I suspect the seller will be content to sit on it, until the market has caught up. What you are getting is a rust free Mk1 in the first instance (barely used on UK roads). Its probably overpriced, but its difficult to set a value on this car.
Literally, the only Mk1s I would get hung up on, for collectability, are the M2s . The Le Mans are too niche to be collectable for me (plus its offputting when the overspray on the underside of the bonnet is pointed out), and the others are just marketing stunts when you get down to it. I saw a M2-1028 recently open bids at 2 million yen. Too much for me.
M2-1001
M2-1002
M2-1028
1 Like
i’ts been for sale on and off for past couple of years,i’m aware of this edition, i just can’t see the reason for £9k + value to me
I remember that wreck of a M2-1001 that was sold by CarPlanet, originally for £5000 in 2005 (when regular imports of the same age were selling for £3-4000), eventually for £1000 as a dealer trade-in by about 2010, and ending up in Italy for something in excess of £11,000 in about 2019.
Want another one from Japan? It’ll cost your £25-30k.
1 Like
The car you saw may not be the one on sale Andrew (Autolink) had two Tokyo Ltd
Nope, same car that went through the auctions in June 2018, and landed by Autolinkuk circa November 2018, with the same aftermarket wheel, KG Works bits and Lexus rear lights.
The Tokyo I saw in Southampton, I suppose 10 years ago
Fake
The car sold by Sam Goodwin, circa 2014
Couple at a Gaydon rally a few years back
Another UK Tokyo
(which might have been the Southampton car)
There is maybe one more in the UK, which had been written off in Japan, and rebuilt.