Want our hot take on buying an older Miata? Go buy a z3! 😀

Angry? Good, now on to the rest:

Two very different friends of ours had two very different identical NA Miatas. One was almost perfect, the other one was missing the left mirror assembly. Onwards then, my fellow Mis-shifted assholes, as we look at some Mazda Miatas, god help me.

Let’s start with the nice one, because I’m lazy and it’s easy. It was a 1990 with a 1.6L and came with a hardtop. The car was bone stock, and was pretty much what you’d expect outta decent Miata. Car felt light and nimble, you’ll feel it roll hilariously but it was never unsettling, the transmission was a joy to use, and the four chickens that live under the hood will gladly accept it when you wring it out. It is slow though, painfully so sometimes. And while it will keep you entertained, especially when you go run through it’s gears, you aren’t exactly treated to the best noise. Less of a that race car scream, more of an annoying bee following you around.

My dad, having raced them, described the experience as racing coffins, so they don’t need to bother moving your body when you wreck.

Still it was a very fun and dumb little car, although maybe not 100% up my alley. You’ve probably read or watched reviews on these before, and may have driven one too. So I’m coming wrap this up to not bore you further.

The car lasted a bit past the summer of 2020, when problems started to pop up. It locked him out of reverse when his dipshit friend with more nicotine than brains played with his knob too roughly (and his gear lever too). Once the car died mysteriously, and I had to drive at 2am to find him and his hook up for the night, only for my presence to have been enough for the car to start and drive off. Then finally, he whacked it into a curb leaving a party, and after fixing it, sold the car to someone who immediately blew the head gasket and then threw in a turbo. It was fun while it lasted.

So the other Miata… that’s where the real fun lies.

This was a 1992 1.6. Just to start, it had ok paint, a hardtop, ruined seats, a bad rag top, questionable head gasket, and liked to overheat and shut down after about 10 minutes of driving. It was total curst-bucket of a Miata and better for it.

It’s the cure for those $7000 “OBO” stance lyfe NA Miatas or $9500 “DON’T WASTE MY TIME” bone stock Miatas you’ll find on marketplace. Go back to 2017, this would’ve been a sub $1000 car that ran questionably for your broke high school ass to fix up or your buddies in college to split, fix behind the dorms, and take it to Orlando Speed World or the FIRM. It’s a barely moving middle finger to all these Miatas being treated like the second coming of automotive Jesus (and then priced as such) vs just being a fun and dumb little sports car to lure you into the adrenalin addiction we all got hooked on in high school.

Justin and I drove it. Clutch dumped the little thing, bring it all the way to the rev limiter, try and destabilize the car, then yank the handbrake just to see what would happen. Won’t lie, we where hard on that stupid car for the 10 or so minutes before it got too hot again. It drove well and like shit at the same time, it’s still a Miata after all. But in this car, what mattered more than how the car drove at the time, was just how idiotically happy we felt it. Top down, hand out the window, trying to get the rears to spin before the car overheats, plowing into a corner all the while you’re laughing your asses off… it was an escape from what was already break from college (we had been working at the time though).

Right before returning it, letting the poor thing cool off, the same thought lingered in our minds. We considered offering $1000 to MSIMA’s resident Pimp’s brother, before we unfortunately came to our senses (I had bought a z3, and he had enough broken cars to deal with), and soon the car was sold. The shitbox Miata was no more.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you that a car on the last leg of its life is better than a well maintained and ready to go used example. It’s not, we would’ve probably dumped a grand into the Miata to make it at least registrable in Florida. But as horrible as it was, the joy that thing brought was real and immense, and there’s something genuinely nice about sharing a car you don’t care much about.

I guess the sometimes best Miata is your friend’s Miata.