Actually, this isn’t all that illogical, as the MR2 is every bit as reliable as any other Toyota. You’re not likely to see a Fiero in this line of work.
But, I did see something rather unusual wearing the same Papa John’s crown a few days later…
A Porsche 944. Sadly, I didn’t peel off a shot. But who would use a 944 to deliver Pizza?
I can think of worse choices: a Lotus Seven, for instance. “Hi. Here’s your pizza. Sorry it’s a little dirty, but it blew out of my car on the way here.”
There’s a certain practicality to this, at least. I ordered Dominos a while back on one of those weeknights when nothing in the house enthused my taste buds, and the guy showed up in a Nissan Armada. Now, how in the world this kid could have made any money delivering pizza in that gas hog, I will never know.
When I drove for Pizza Hut about 10 years ago one of the drivers delivered in a Chevy Suburban. Yeah, she was a single mother who drove what she thought was THE safest vehicle for her and her 2 kids.
I considered going back to delivering but figured I would probably just break even with my Crown Victoria as a delivery vehicle.
During early 2000s I delivered pizza for many different companies in small towns around Atlanta. By that time the drivers were able to make a good money in tips and it was the best part time job I had experienced.
Pizza and auto parts delivery was a job dominated by Brazilian immigrants in Atlanta but usually by the end of the year, a bit before Christmas many of my fellow co workers would take a couple of weeks vacation and go back to Brazil.
Those drivers in vacation would be temporarily replaced by Americans looking for some extra cash for the holidays.
That was an interesting time when I could notice on the parking lot some of the Civics and Corollas being replaced by full size pick up trucks and even a pristine 1993 Fox body Mustang GT driven by a lady.
It brings back memories of college in the early, early 1980s. We had a pizza delivery guy (who I actually knew as we came from the same hometown) that delivered in his Porsche 914. His dad was a successful local doctor, and that was the guy’s normal ride. You can say all the bad things you want about the 914 being a VW, but at the end of the day, it was still a Porsche, and it was being used for pizza delivery.
Honestly, I don’t see the economics in owning any car, other than an older beater, and using it for delivery, or even ridesharing. You end up putting so many miles on the car, with limited payback for the gas and wear and tear, so that I don’t see the reward. I see people using a nice newer car for Uber, but when I speak with them, they tell of having 60K on a 3 year old car. That means no lease, and now the car has minimal value as a trade. At that point, why not buy a 5 year old sedan for driving? It just makes no sense in my mind…..
The great thing about a 914 for pizza delivery is the rear trunk sitting above the rear of the warm engine, the warm to sizzling exhaust heat exchangers, and the warm transaxle–a perfect place for keeping a pizza warm in transit! Who knew? Buon appetito!
You guys have it all wrong. A Porsche is for delivering bratwurst, wiener-schnitzel and hot german potato salad. Pizzas should be delivered in a Lamborghini or Ferrari. 🙂
Uber and Lyft actually have guidelines and restrictions for the age and mileage on cars used for their services.
I rent a room to a Lyft driver who actually leases his car(s) through Lyft. He’s on his 4th car since moving in with me in mid-March. The Lyft leasing pool is actually made up of former Hertz rental cars. Once they’ve done their tour of duty with Hertz they go into the Lyft pool. Once they hit 40k miles (or are due for the closest service interval to 40,000) they are turned back in and go into Hertz’ used car inventory and are sold off. The leasing option obviously reduces wear and tear on the driver’s own vehicle, but it’as not exactly cheap. From what I understand leasing can cost between 600-800 monthly including insurance, with incentives and a bonus structure to help defray the overall leasing costs. In the case of my housemate, he doesn’t own a personal car, so it serves dual purpose, plus providing him transport to the handyman jobs he does in addition to Lyft driving, so overall I guess it makes sense. And he’s driving something “new” every other month or so, with no maintenance or repair costs. Not long ago he was assigned a Sentra with a bad CVT, took it back in and was issued an Elantra the same day. Not so inconvenient, really.
That makes more sense, and it is a good choice for Hertz, allowing them to dispose of the old fleet. What I had seen before was evil Uber offering a lease on a new BYD (no joke, a Chinese electric car with no dealers or service network in the USA) that apparently died on the vine. I have read about the shift to ride-sharing and how the manufacturers are looking at it, and how the big rental companies are dealing with the changes. What I read did not mention this Lyft/Hertz mashup, but it makes good business sense. But, as the rental companies reduce the number of vehicles in their fleet, will the ride-share companies keep to their current age and mileage limits or stretch them out to match the cars they have in inventory for leasing? It becomes a Catch-22, as the pool of retired rentals gets smaller, the demand for them will go up at a higher proportion as more ride-shares are used versus rentals.
So a used Hertz rental car now gets the extra whammy of having been a taxi to boot? Sheesh, what’s left? County prisoner transport for the trifecta?
I had the same thought, Jim, but remember that while in rental fleet service they’re serviced remarkably well, and once in the Lyft pool they’re still taken in to Hertz for regular service. My thought is that picking up a 2-3 year old vehicle coming out of Hertz rental/Lyft pool service at approximately 40,000 miles is a better bet than many other 40,000 mile used cars. I know people who’ve owned a daily use car for 3 years, and changed the oil and filter for the first time just prior to trading it in. At least these things have been looked after in between the abuse they’ve withstood.
Excellent!
There is a blue Ford Focus just like ours delivering pizzas in our area. My daughter was mortified “Dad, we’re driving a pizza delivery car!”
Then again, the local newspaper delivery guy drives a Caravan just like ours too. We are KILLING vehicle selection in our neighborhood 🙂 🙂
My youngest, when he was five and was asked what kind of car he wanted when he was older, replied “A pizza car. There’s always a hot pizza inside, it’s perfect.”
Actually saw an MR2 on US 491 this morning. Looked very pristine (dare I say perhaps even restored). There’s a design that still looks current – as if it could simply be put back into production.
A former neighbor of mine had a Gen One “Mister Two”, it was really a pretty decent car. It started off as his daily driver and got moved to weekend toy car when he and his wife started having children. I lost track of Al when we moved and have no idea what became of the MR2.
I frequently see a car I used to own delivering pizzas in my neighborhood. It is a 2005 Solara that I traded away in 2010. I’m sure it is the same car because the passenger’s door has a couple of minor scuff marks that were on the car when I bought it (used) and never bothered to fix. The Solara has been delivering pizza for at least 4 or 5 years; I can only imagine what the inside of the car looks and smells like.
An MR 2 for Pizza delivery is damn good. Here in Ames I have seen a pizza delivery with a FIAT X1/9 (Bertone). However that was for a very short time maybe 2 years ago. The X 1/9 is still in town though.
Haha! Yep, I was just going to comment on the X1/9 running around the north side of Ames.
Well, hopefully with a sports car you’ll get it in a hurry and it’ll still be nice and hot! A pizza place I once (literally) worked for had a 1986 Honda Prelude as its delivery car, later replaced it with a Kia Sephia. Looks like the sign on top of this Mister Two is about to fall off, though.
The signs that have lights built in (this looks like one of those signs), have cords that plug into a vehicle power outlet. I had a regular cab Ranger as a delivery vehicle and depending on how I oriented the sign the power cord was too short or too long.
Well, believe it or not, I have also seen a 944 delivering pizzas … I think it was in Meno Park, California at least ten years ago. Maybe after the dot-com crash.
Thank you Paul. Your website, and eclectic potpourri of daily photos, always provides me with a source of fun Photoshop diversion during my lunch breaks at work.
There’s so much visual clutter to be removed on this Toyota. lol
It’s funny, the window stickers seemed to make more visual clutter than the magnetic pizza sign. Never understood why people do that.
You get an additional 5 hp per sticker, didn’t you know?
I knew a guy back in the 90’s in Atlanta who delivered newspapers, pizza and was the maintenance department for the small label printing firm I worked for at the time. He’d been married four times (IIRC) by the time he was 28 which was when I knew the guy. He’d had kids in each of the three previous marriages and as a side note, one of his ex-wives worked at the label factory. Woo hoo!
His day consisted of this: At zero dark thirty he was loading the morning paper into his 400 year old (I’m kidding, but it was ancient) VW Transporter, and delivered papers to houses all along the northern tier of Atlanta. This took about two hours. He then went to one or more of his ex-wives’ houses, shuttled kids to various daycare facilities and was present at the label factory at 07:00 hrs. He left there at lunch to shuttle a kid or two somewhere else. Back to the factory, then left there for the day at 3:30 PM or so. He then delivered the evening paper. After that run was complete, he had a couple of hours and then was delivering pizza in a clapped out old Honda Civic that had no seats in it. They had been replaced with cut-down pizza racks so he could take 15 or 20 (or more) pizzas at a time. He did this until well after midnight. He always said the best tips were late night, how could I argue with him?
I can remember an instance where the Transporter broke down. He had to do all of his running in the Civic (did I mention it was old and clapped out?). He said he was able to accomplish it all with the Honda, but I wondered how he shuttled the kids around, especially with no seats?
I don’t think the poor bastard ever slept. Of course, if you marry four women in ten years, what do you expect?
I don’t know who originally said this, but this guy reminds me of the quote “next time I feel like getting married, I’m just going to find a woman who hates me and buy her a house.”
Willie Nelson and Rod Stewart have both said something similar.
Additionally Rod Stewart said that it would be better and cheaper for him, with less grief, just to find, at random, an attractive woman on the street and just give her a house! LOL.
Willie Nelson has also said,: “Divorce, do you know why divorce is so expensive?, it’s worth it.” Another LOL.
I worked at a pizza hut in late 90s. Driver use what that can. There was 2 olds cutlass cierra s a Saturn coup an early 80s BMW 3 series and a new ford ranger that one of the drivers leased. I would fill in if it was busy on the weekend’s. I drove my f150 or my parents 89 mercury cougar.
But one winter michigan blizard it was just me and one other 4×4 pizza driver from the competition in the roads. We clean up with tips that night!
When I was a kid one of my favorite parts of pizza night was watching out the window to see what car it was delivered in, as they were almost never boring cars, and almost never the same despite our loyalty to the same place(either they had high employee turnover or the drivers went through cars like toilet paper). Now there seem to be a lot of pizza delivery drivers who also drive for Uber off hours, and it’s not uncommon to get our pizza delivered from a brand new spindle grille Lexus. Fancy, eh? Blah….
These are another golden age Toyota I miss, though I do prefer the origami 80sness of the gen 1, there’s no denying the good looks of these gen IIs. The roofline in particular is my favorite part, and while most will undoubtedly relate it to the Ferrari 308/328 in detail, in execution the buttresses ending well short of the rear end and the shape of the greenhouse actually resembles more to me the roofline of the 68-70 Dodge Charger – seriously, go ahead and cover the lower body with your finger if you think I’m nuts.
I was selling Toyotas when these were new. Every ass-clown 18 year-old kid wanted to try the turbo version, thinking they were going to “drive it like they stole it” on the test drive.
I would have to grab the steering wheel and shout at them that they weren’t qualifying for the Indy 500 in this car. I eventually let other salesmen take those “ups”; I had a wife and a young child to get home to. I wasn’t going to be splattered all over I-85 because some idiot thought he was the Redneck Mario Andretti…
I grew to hate those cars.
Our Dominos dude drove a ’90s Nissan Maxima (JDM model). We moved town a year ago and no longer have a Dominos, but the local pizza place will deliver…in a ’90s Maxima…
NB – Paul, your first sentence says MR3 instead of MR2.
It’s one of the very rare V6 models. 🙂
Believe it or not, the 1MZ-FE V6 is a popular engine swap for these, because very little modifications are needed to make them fit, and they end up nearly as fast as a 3S-GTE turbo. That, and 100’s of thousands of the motors laying around from wrecked Camrys, RX’s, etc. doesn’t hurt.
Curbside effect strikes again; saw this MR2 today in Tuscon while at lunch:
Likewise: I saw a twin to the white MR2 featured here tooling around DC yesterday morning. Perhaps the owner caught the article and was inspired to go for a drive.
Saw a 3-series BMW with a local pizza-joint’s roof sign on it the other day. Granted, it was in a relatively upscale area, but I can’t imagine how that’s a money-making proposition if the driver is actually responsible for the expense of keeping up the car.
I also live in a fairly upscale area. It’s totally not uncommon where I live to see high school kids driving BMWs that were more than likely hand-me-downs from their parents. And yes, some of those get used for delivering pizza.