As far as weird trade-in stories go, this has got to be one of the strangest. Earlier this week, Coad Toyota of Cape Girardeau, Missouri took in a total of five first-generation MR2s of varying specs and mileage from a single owner at once. Talk about unexpected.

Japanese Nostalgic Car spoke with Ben Brotherton, the sales manager at Coad Toyota, to get the details behind this unusual trade-in. According to him, the cars were owned by a retired employee from the dealership building up the collection with the goal of owning one first-gen MR2 (otherwise known as the AW11) from each year of production. The specs for the cars traded in are as follows:

A 1985 fixed-roof sunroof car painted in yellow with over 207,000 miles on the clock. It sports aftermarket wheels, and was originally painted silver. According to Japanese Nostalgic Car, it's the only car out of this collection that's been modified from stock.

A 1986 fixed-roof car with no sunroof painted in red, with around 140,000 miles on the odometer. It was apparently the owner's favorite out of the bunch, with regular visits to car shows and other events.

A 1987 targa model painted in white sporting just 80,500 miles. It sports the OEM three-spoke wheels and an automatic transmission.

A 1988 targa model also painted in white, and also equipped with an automatic transmission. This one sports phone dial wheels and a factory supercharged engine—the only car here that's not naturally aspirated. It has just 78,500 miles on the odometer.

A 1989 targa model painted in a lovely shade of sky blue, equipped with the five-speed manual transmission. This is the cleanest, lowest-mileage car of the bunch, with just 28,000 miles on the clock.

Japanese Nostalgic Car followed up with the dealer, and just two days after they announced the cars would be sold off, all but the yellow example have already been scooped up (sorry prospective AW11 owners). Brotherton says the former owner replaced his collection with a single 2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata with 10,000 miles on the clock.

This probably isn't the way we'd sell off a collection of MR2s, but it's cool to see cars like this have been preserved. We hope he enjoys his new MX-5.

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