NA Miata, Take 2: Black & Tan

A few weeks back, my scruffy little 1990 NA Miata project trackday car, El Cheapacabra, met an untimely demise. I posted a quick sob story describing the incident, and got some great leads from readers - thank you guys for the input! However, I couldn't help myself from setting up a craigslist alert with a few key criteria: model = Miata, year = up to 1993, transmission = manual, price =< $3500. With a barrage of daily autobot emails there were bound to be some good ones, and today I pulled the trigger on El Cheapo's replacement, using insurance payout cash to buy this 1993 "C package" car in black & tan. Hooray! Back to jinba ittai for me.

El Cheapacabra is Dead. Long Live El Cheapacabra!

If you've been following our sporadic Project Car posts, you'll perhaps remember (through a foggy haze of regret and clove smoke, no doubt) that the DT stable is full of various cheap fun vehicles, but the cheapest of all was El Cheapacabra, my $600 ugly red 1990 Mazda Miata. Well I have some sour news for you, Jack. El Cheapo was killed before his time last week, slaughtered by an inattentive E46 driver traveling the opposite direction who turned left in front of me, with the ensuing 35 mph wreck enough to tweak it beyond repair. I had about 1 second to react, which meant all I could do was lock up the brakes and swerve slightly to the right to lessen the impact severity and turn it into more of a glancing 45-degree blow. But the Miata is toast. What now?

El Cheapacabra Update: Zero-Staging

Reviving a neglected or abused car is kind of fun, in my sick and twisted mind. I convince myself that I'm saving money (sure), but I know for a fact that it's satisfying to make such a sad little pile of parts into a respectable car again. It's only been a few weeks with El Cheapacabra, but the joys of NA Miata ownership have got a firm hold on me already. Especially considering the bargain basement $600 purchase price. For my stack of $20 bills (seriously), I got a mystery car with a clean title that had obviously been sitting under a tree for a few years. The front end was crunched at some point in the past, but nothing major stood out as being mechanically wrong. OK, so the tires were 10 years old and basically square, but that's an easy fix.

Introducing El Cheapacabra: the $600 NA Miata

Oh no, what have I done now? As if my own driveway and the collective DT Project Car stable wasn't yet large enough, I've gone and adopted this forlorn looking Miata. Armed with a penchant for checking craigslist every 10 minutes and a thirst for cheap trackday fun after driving a simple 1.6L NA at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca a few weeks back, I've been on the hunt for an el-cheapo Miata to convert into a low stress trackday car for my wife and I to drive. And with all of the Miata talk lately on the DT Radio Show, I thought it necessary to put (a very small amount of) my money where my mouth has been flapping. The creature presented itself this Tuesday. Here she is, my first NA.