NA Miatas are first generation, 1009-1998 IIRC.
I didn't pay a whole lot for it but when the first thing major goes then the whole thing is going to wind up in the scrapyard. I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole. I got under it and see that it's in a lot worse shape that it looked from the outside. It's not in very good shape but for what I paid for it and what I want out of it I suppose it'll do.
NA Miatas have gone through the roof in recent years. The NA I bought a decade ago and burned up in the fire cost me a measly $1200. It had been garage kept and the woman that sold it to me wanted $2000.
Much to her credit, she took it in to get a sticker first and found out the tires were rotten and the brake pads were marginal so when I showed up she explained it and that to get it up to inspection passing grade they wanted $800. She gave it to me for $1200!
Needless to say, when I took it home I bought good rubber and fixed the pads myself.
An NA in the condition I got a decade ago now runs $10,000 and up!
I've driven a couple of the newer ones, an NB and an NC and the truth is that Mazda got that one right with the NA. There's something clean and righteous about a simple machine like an NA base model, no frills and a wonderful driving machine.
Needless to say, like all plain and simple things people decided to f**k with it. The whole thing turned into something a captain said to me about the P-38 can opener. Anyone that's ever used one to open a can knows what a P-38 is.
"One of these days the Army is going to invent the P-38A1 and it will have 356 moving parts, a battery pack, weigh ten pounds and won't open cans worth a $hit."
Fortunately for GI Joe the MRE entered the picture and he didn't have to carry around a brick sized object to open his canned rations.
Same thing with the Miata. They got it right the first time. They really nailed it.
I can't blame Mazda for creating the NB-ND models, though. They have to make money and the NA had run the better part of a decade and I imagine sales slowed down.
Still, the next three generations managed to eliminate an awful lot of the simplicity and charm of the base model NA. They slowly changed it from being an Old School sports car to a 'touring convertible'.
The third generation, the NC added a power driven fold down hardtop. It actually took longer to put up than the original ragtop. The ragtop was dead simple, pull it up with one hand and snap the two catches. Done and secured in well under 5 seconds. No motors, no fancy mechanisms. Just pull it up and catch the catches which you have to do anyway with the power driven model. Simple.
Of course it's been 26 years since the last NA rolled off the assembly line. Change is inevitable and some is good and some is not so good.
The newer Maitas started adding comfort to their line. They slowly changed their customer base which is good business, still they pulled the entire spirit out of the car. It's nowhere near the same.
A sports car without a manual transmission is like chili without peppers.
Yes, there were a handful of NAs with automatics but I think it was well under 6%. They were originally designed for sports car people that were familiar with things like the Triumph Spitfires, MGB and that type of vehicle...but without things like 'Prince of Darkness' Lucas electrical systems.
Japanese engineering not created the return of the Old School sports cars but their engineering made them bullet proof!
Anyway I now have what I consider to be a real Old School sports car.
No comments:
Post a Comment