I Just Impulse Bought My Dream Convertible And It’s A $2,300 ‘British Miata’ From Japan

This year, I gave myself a mission to buy as many of my dream cars as I can. Just this morning, I managed to tick another box on my bucket list, and I blew a bunch of cash on buying a car I’ve wanted since I was a teenager. This is a 1998 MGF. It’s pretty much what happens when the British tried to make a Miata in the 1990s. I spent just $2,300 on it, but it’s not coming from Britain, but Japan. It sounds crazy, but it actually makes total sense.

My 1997 Honda Life has only barely been home for a week, and I’m already committing myself to another import. Truth be told, importing cars is actually sort of addictive. There’s the thrill of the search, finding the score, watching the ship slowly cross the world, and then bringing home the goods myself. The trip to pick up the Honda might have been a total disaster, but I still had a ton of fun. I found myself thinking, “I can’t wait to do it all over again.”

As it turns out, that’s going to happen much sooner than I expected. Last night, I was flipping through the pages of Japanese auctions and used car platforms when I found something that I’ve wanted to import for years. I’ve been wanting to import an MGF since I got into importing cars back in 2021. However, the few times I’ve found one for sale, either the examples were too broken, too expensive, or a mix of both. I finally found an example that fits my perfect mix of functional and cheap.

A Teenage Dream

I imported my first car back in spring 2021. That car was a 1991 Honda Beat, and I love that car, but there was another car I was searching for at the same time. When I was a kid, I watched a lot of British car television, and through it, I fell in love with the MGF.

This was sort of funny because, as Fifth Gear‘s Tiff Needell explained during the launch of the MG TF, the British motoring press sort of hated on the MGF. They shot down the car’s build quality, seating ergonomics, and steering feel. It seemed as though the MGF was a worse Miata. But I didn’t care. I loved its cute bug eyes, its rounded body, and mid-rear engine layout. It was like an adorable Toyota MR2 with a silly Hydragas suspension. At least, that’s what it looked like in my eyes. Check out some classic Richard Hammond here:

I was always sad that I couldn’t have the MGF in the United States. I drove the MGF in Gran Turismo 4, and I have an MGF Matchbox car, but this was never enough. The MGF continued to be just out of reach as an adult. I looked into what it takes to import a car from Europe to the United States and didn’t really like the costs.

As I wrote earlier this year, exchange rates work against you when you’re trying to import a car from Europe to America. Sure, the car that you find might be only $2,500, but by the time you’re done, you will likely spend close to $10,000. How much are you willing to spend on a cheap car? I’m a serial cheapskate, so the answer for me is definitely not that much.

Thankfully, there is a sort of cheat code here. Lots of European cars were also sold in Japan, which is great because the exchange rate between the Japanese yen and the U.S. dollar highly favors American buyers.

The catch is that certain European cars are harder to find in Japan. For example, the first-generation Mercedes-Benz A-Class sold in Japan sells for pennies on the dollar in the Japanese auction system, but they only rarely go through the auction system, so you don’t have a ton of choice. The Rover MGF (stylized as just MGF) is another car that was sold in Japan. However, these also rarely show up in auctions, and when they do, the reserve price is arguably more than what the car is actually worth.

You can also find European cars in Japan on sites like the Goonet Exchange and Car From Japan, but their prices are similarly high for what you’re getting. Sure, you can get a Kei truck from one of these platforms for less than the price of a beat-up Volkswagen from Craigslist, but the Euro options can end up being surprisingly pricy.

My 1998 MGF

I’ve lost count of how many MGF auctions I didn’t meet reserve on because of this. Then, last night, I saw it. I cruised through Japanese car export website Be Forward and saw something that seemed too good to be true. There it was, a 1998 Rover MGF for just $2,300, or $4,000 shipped to Baltimore. This was the cheapest MGF I’ve found in years. What’s the catch?

I flipped through the listing and found it to be satisfyingly detailed. The vehicle is said to be in good mechanical shape. The air-conditioner works, the transmission shifts fine, and the inspector found no obvious issues with the engine. The only note was that the engine has a tiny oil seepage. Not a full-on leak, but just seepage. Not bad!

I then checked the underbody photos and was pleased at the lack of any serious rust. Sure enough, the inspector gave the car a grade of 4, or the second-highest grade an old car like this could get in the Japanese auction system. As you can guess, the lack of a 4.5 means that there are some things wrong with the car.

There are three noted issues with the car. One issue is that the 16,000-kilometer mileage is unconfirmed, so the odometer was probably replaced. I don’t really care about that. Another issue was that the driver door card insert fabric has come off. Apparently, this is just one of those quality issues that these MGFs had even many years ago, so that’s whatever. Apparently, the original fabric that fell off the door will come with the car. Some adhesive will have that fixed in a jiffy!

The last problem is a broken convertible top window. This window was intact at its last inspection in June 2024, but it seems that either the plastic finally gave way or someone vandalized the car while it sat in the yard. Either way, it’s currently taped up well enough to get the car onto a ship and off to a buyer. There are replacement windows available for around $300, and it looks like the process to fix it takes all of 10 or 20 minutes. In other words, two extremely minor issues!

So, I said screw it, let’s do it. Admittedly, I put maybe an hour of total thought into it before hitting the “Buy Now” button. Due to my new rule of “1 Car In, 1 Car Out,” the 2007 BMW E61 that I bought from the Bishop will be sold to make room for this one.

Like A Miata, But Weird

What I’ll be getting should be sweet. I wrote a few paragraphs about the development of the MGF a couple of years ago:

The MGF was initially developed starting in 1991 by Rover Group under its final years of ownership by British Aerospace. When introduced in 1995 it was touted as the first all-new MG since 1962. The fresh MGF had some tricks up its sleeve. The 1.8-liter four making 120 HP was moved back to a mid-rear arrangement, the car rode on a Hydragas suspension and it even featured electric power steering.

What is a Hydragas suspension? Instead of separate springs and dampers, you get space-saving displacers filled with an inert gas. It’s a successor to the Hydrolastic suspension designed by British engineer Alex Moulton. In this system, conventional springs and shock absorbers are replaced with a liquid-based suspension system meant to reduce pitch and keep a vehicle level on bumps.

Each unit consists of a damper unit and a Hydragas displacer, an integral spring that uses compressed nitrogen as the springing medium. As a reader once explained, the main difference between the Hydrolastic system and Hydragas is that the Hydrolastic system used displacers featuring a rubber spring.

Rover Group was owned by BMW when the car went on sale in 1995. In 2000, BMW broke up Rover Group and the MGF would fall under the then newly formed MG Rover umbrella. That’s why you’ll sometimes find some people calling early examples like mine a Rover and a later model an MG. Update: However, as a reader has helpfully pointed out and I confirmed by looking at a brochure, the marketing just called them “MGF,” so there’s that.

Who knows, maybe I’ll dislike the MGF, or maybe I’ll love it. You have no idea if you’ll like your hero until you actually meet them. In a worst-case scenario, it wouldn’t be hard to make my money back.

Trying Something Different

I’ve never purchased from Be Forward before, but my importer contacts haven’t raised many red flags about the platform. They warned that I should try to stick to cars listed as being in Be Forward’s stock. This is because sometimes, a third-party seller might have a car listed, take your money, and then find out that they’ve already sold the car. Now, you have to get a refund, which could take a while. Apparently, you can be more confident that a car in Be Forward’s stock is actually there. Thankfully, the MGF was listed as Be Forward stock.

The purchasing process is also shockingly painless. In the past, I had to pay a deposit to my importer or exporter, shop for the car, choose the car, receive a proforma invoice, and then wire more money across the world. I’ve now done this three times, and while there has been no issue, it’s always sort of stressful. Make an error in sending a wire, and you might not see that money again.

Be Forward packages up everything in one price. You pay for the car, shipping, and insurance all at the same time. Even cooler is the fact that Be Forward takes PayPal, so no getting gouged by wire fees and no crossing your fingers, hoping the wire reaches its destination.

Of course, I’m still at the very beginning of this process, so don’t take that as a review of Be Forward. The car still has to be shipped, and I still have to receive it. Thus far, Be Forward has only made it easier to buy a car, that’s all. Based on reviews of the site, it seems like you may have to wait a while before your car gets on a boat, but we’ll see!

At any rate, in theory, I now just wait for the car to arrive in Baltimore. Then, I get to play Customs Roulette again and hope I don’t have to pay tariffs.

Either way, I’m stoked. If you’ve been reading our site for long enough, then you know that I’ve been talking about buying one of these for years. Hopefully, it reaches the end of its ocean journey in as good shape as I’m being told. I do expect a few things to be wrong; it is a 27-year-old car, after all, but hopefully, the basics are all there.

So, if you want that hot European import, but don’t like paying more for it, maybe consider getting that Euro car from Japan. You’ll pay less, and as you might see, maybe you can still get a decent car.