[NA] Retro-Modded - MX-5 Miata Forum (2024)

MC70

Join Date: Oct 2012

Location: Monument, CO

Posts: 8,044

Hello all. This is the ongoing saga of my entanglement with my 1996 Chaste White Miata.

I love to write. I have a couple of stories in the works. And I love photography. In fact, I love it so much that at one point I thought I was going to make a career change. I take photos of everything and I truly love automotive photography. It isn't much of a surprise that I enjoy taking photos of my car. I find it to be a very engaging and difficult shape to translate into a two dimensional image while retaining the nuances of the design. What I've found is that I'm decent at it, but I've also realized that when folks who aren't familiar with the car they almost universally ask if there are more photos, or to expound on some modification or another. So I figured it was high time to drop a proper build thread on M.net.

It's a wandering build for sure. You'll see the evolution of the car to its current state. You'll see elements come and go. You'll see the concepts I had about the car change as I continue to own it, and you'll even see a little bit of tragedy which is leading me in new directions. So if you're interested, have a gander. Ask questions (I love hearing them; I often find they are the impetus for new ideas and solutions to problems that I hadn't considered).

So, I like to start most of my stories with somewhat of a preface. I know this isn't very original or engaging method, but it works for something chronological like this. So, let's dial back the clock to the year 1998. Terrorism wasn't really a thing in the US and we were largely carefree. We were a nation full of unsuspecting folks, innocent from a homeland attack and enjoying great prosperity as our social stigmas started to melt away. The Miata was just starting to become cool again, and my father bought a used 1992 in Classic Red. I teased him for it.

Worse, I teased him because he was a short, hairy guy who lived in a college town. My mother had always referred to him as her 'teddy bear' and so got personalized plates that read "4RBEAR", and later, these wheels:

Yeah.

Yet, in 2000 I visited home during a course at Norfolk Naval Base and drove the car for the first time. I think it took me until I got out of the neighborhood to fall in love with the Miata. That experience had a really profound effect on me. I got back home to Tokyo, Japan and finished my 4 year tour admiring all the highly modified street cars, and particularly the Miata. I was even in fairly constant contact with a very rare Miata Coupe, which parked near the furniture store on Yokota AB, fender to fender with a Serena with those cool gullwing doors. I had no idea how special that coupe was at the time; I wish I'd have taken some photos of it, although I didn't find it particularly attractive. In my youth, I wondered why anyone would buy a coupe version when there was a convertible available that had a removable hardtop. Oh how we learn...

A few years later, my father bought a secondhand Mercedes SLK to replace the Miata and he offered it to me two years after returning stateside. I bought it, with the hardtop and 275miles for the ripe sum of $2200. Not a great deal at the time because every body panel had at least one ding, and the paint was quite faded. And I was going to have to do something about those wheels. I mean, driving that thing from Virginia to Nebraska was a little embarrassing, especially wearing those plates. I survived.

When I arrived home, I put these wheels on it and gave it a very good buff and detail:

[/QUOTE]

I drove it for a couple of years like that, and took one particularly important journey with the car. My grandmother, who I love dearly but never was able to see enough, fell ill with pancreatic cancer. I have the story of that drive here. Here's my awesome Grandma, a much younger me, and my little red Miata. I sure miss you Grandma, and I often wonder what ever became of that car.

I drove that car for a couple of years through much of the year in Omaha, NE. It was great fun in snow until it got too deep, then the Tacoma 4x4 took over. I did alternate between my truck, my car, or my motorcycles. I had a lot of vehicles, little money, and even less sense back then. And this is about the time I finished my degree and decided that I needed to have a job that kept me at home instead of working constant shift hours and sending me on deployments for months and months away from my family. So I got out of the military and sold off everything that wasn't practical; the Miata was among the first casualties.

But the memories I forged in that car were powerful. Once you own a car, you see it everywhere, and so it was with the Miata. My outdoor lifestyle and demands made one impractical, and my new job in TX meant that I was struggling to get ends meeting, but eventually the time came for me to get another vehicle for me; one that I could just use as a fun vehicle if I wanted. So I though about a Miata, then much more exotic cars (used and classic), and then finally settled on... A Ford Quad Cab F150 4x4. They could carry the family camping and my mountain bikes to the trail... Or both.

And that's where the story would have ended if Chad had gotten his way. Who's Chad? Well, let me explain...

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