COAL: 1991 Mazda Miata – The Perfect Sports Car For A College Student

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– Posted on May 17, 2020

After I sold my Audi A4, I was determined to have a cool little sports car for my next ride. I had taken up autocrossing, and as good as the Audi was for learning how to drive, I wanted something a little bit more agile.

The thing was, the only money I had was the cash from the sale of the Audi A4. I had 5 grand to spend, but I didn’t want to spend all of that money on the car itself, so the actual budget for my next car topped out at 3 grand.

Shopping for a sports car

My short list of cars consisted of the Toyota MR2, the Mazda RX-7, and the Mazda Miata. I think I gravitated to these cars because there were other Champaign County Sports Car Club (CCSCC) members that had these cars, or cars at least very similar to them. One friend had a beautiful and clean champagne gold 1988 Toyota MR2 that met its rusty fate as it was pressed into winter beater duty. Another friend had a 2004 Mazda RX-8 and I found the rotary motor in the car fascinating. And of course, Miatas could be found at every single autocross event.

Tom Ingles was one such fellow with a Miata. An older gentlemen with years of experience etched into his face, he had strong opinions, an intense drive to get things done, and a gruff country voice that carried the air of decisive authority. No wonder that in his younger days he was in the Air Force, in charge of keeping planes maintained on schedule and flying right. I had spent many, many hours with him as the two of us worked to transition CCSCC’s timing from a pen-and-paper process to a new computerized one with the new-at-the-time whizbang software called AXWare, something that not all club members were on board with initially.

Tom had a bright white 2003 Mazda Miata that was nicknamed “Maggie,” with a turbo under the hood and a roll bar installed behind the seats. He was constantly edging me on to get a Miata for my next car. “You can join us at Miatas at Hallet,” he said. “It’ll be the most fun you’ve ever had.”

I ended up test driving an 80s AW11 Toyota MR2 first. It was red with crusty rockers, with a nice interior the belied its years in the Midwest. I took it for a drive and was instantly infatuated with the car. It was everything that my Audi was not: small, lithe, peppy, and tinny. I really liked the car, but it was too rusty for me. I vowed that I would someday find and own a rust-free AW11 MR2; joke’s on me, as in the past decade plus, the rust free examples have dwindled to minuscule numbers with correspondingly soul-crushing high prices.

The next car I test drove was a white 80s FB Mazda RX-7. The car was also charming, though it definitely wasn’t as tight as the MR2 I had just test driven. I don’t know how much of that was due to the design of the car (recirculating ball steering, solid rear axle) and how much of it was due to the car’s sorry state. When the clutch pedal stopped working during the test drive, the owner hopped out and simply poured more fluid into the dry clutch reservoir, which raised questions in my head that I didn’t care to learn the answers to. I passed on the car.

Finally, I found a first-gen Miata that I could afford. It was two and a half hours north of Champaign in the Chicago suburb of Gurnee. I went up there by myself to take a look at the car, bringing along some cash tucked into a plain white envelope.

A picture of the Miata the day that I went up to Gurnee to take a look.

 

Waiting there for me was a 1990 Miata in red with a hardtop. It had served as a Chicago commuter for many years, and was a relatively high mileage car. Someone had patched the rocker rust on both sides of the car, which was good enough for me, and the interior was still in very nice shape. The A/C was not cold, the drivers side mirror had a terminal case of floppiness, and the front and rear bumpers were beginning to fade. I took the car out for a test drive and was delighted that it drove very similarly to the MR2 I had test driven prior.

There was no way that I could have afforded the car with the hard top, so that was the first thing removed from the negotiation of the car. The asking price was $2700, and I offered $2400 to start. The seller countered with $2600. I pulled out my white envelope, counted $2500 in $100 bills, and offered it as my final bid, tapping the wad of cash on the windshield frame.

That did the trick. I was now in possession of a Mazda Miata, a mere one week after I had sold the Audi.

My father was not amused. I drove back home and the next day, I road tripped with my father back up to Gurnee to pick up the car. I’m sure he was wondering what in the hell consumed his son to buy a small, slightly ugly little sports car instead of something else more… sensible.

I didn’t care. I had my little sports car, and I was over the moon.

You spin me right round

Naturally, the first thing I did with the Miata was take it autocrossing.

It was such a difference to how my Audi A4 drove. Top down, it was a revelation. I could see everything on the course! I could see exactly where I placed each of the front wheels! The little car was fun, tossable, and able to take corners at speeds that the Audi could never imagine!

I felt like Superman. I could do anything! Maybe take these corners at full throttle without lifting!

Nay, the laws of physics still applied, even to small lightweight sports cars.

Hitting one of many cones in the Miata. Photo used with permission from my friend John Sapp.

 

That first year of autocrossing in the Miata was a crash course in the concept of oversteer. It wasn’t unusual for me to hit a dozen cones and spin half a dozen times over the course of a 2-day weekend. I struggled with the concepts of “the gas pedal is not an on/off switch” and “smooth motions at the steering wheel lest you cause the tires to break traction.”

A good friend of mine, Adrian, who also had an NA Miata, painted in a purple-tinged flat black with contrasting stripes, started autocrossing around the same time as I. In 2008, it became obvious that there were only two contenders for the club’s year-end Bowling Award, an orange bowling pin handed out to the driver who hits the most cones, and it was Adrian and me.

Unfortunately, I “won.” I don’t quite remember how many cones I ended up killing, but it was well north of 60 in a single season. Furthermore, I spun the little Miata 46 times, all tallied up in a video I made back in the day that I’m now too embarrassed to show anybody.

From that season forward, I was the “Spinmaster.” Even now, over a decade since that infamous season, when I’m back at Rantoul for an event and someone spins out on course, the jokes start flying that the driver “pulled a John Li” or “took some lessons from John,” haha.

Cheap car, cheap parts

The best part about the Miata was that I could afford parts and consumables on a student budget.

Tom, having accomplished the first step of putting me in a Miata, began the process of convincing me to run Miatas at Hallett. To do that, I would need a roll bar. Luckily for me, someone on now-defunct local car forum, the awkwardly named Central Illinois Car Enthusiast Network, or CICEnet, was building his street Miata into a Spec Miata. As he removed his roll bar and installed a racing cage, he offered me the roll bar for free if I came to his place to pick it up. Hell yes!

I bought a 4-point Schroth harness and anchored it to the roll bar harness bar and the floor.

Free Hard Dog roll bar installed in the Miata.

 

Suspension modifications for Miatas were plentiful and cheap. I bought some red KYB shocks — they had these dials for adjusting “stiffness,” so they must be good, right? — and a front sway bar and installed them on the car to beef up the suspension while still keeping the car E Stock legal.

Finally, I needed wheels and tires. Fortunately, there are lots of people tracking and racing Miatas, and at the time one of the most popular track tires was the Toyo RA-1. I found someone in the St. Louis area who was liquidating his collection of Miata wheels and tires, and managed to score three sets of stock OEM Miata wheels, all mounted with half-worn Toyo RA-1s, for $300.

That was enough rubber for an entire season of autocross plus the track day at Miatas at Hallett. And when I had worn the tread off the tires, I turned around and sold all three sets of wheels for $200.

To cart all of my wheels and tires around, I built a small 4’x4′ Harbor Freight tire trailer and installed a free hitch to the back of the Miata.

The Miata, detailed as best I knew how at the time, with its “nice” set of 16″ wheels.

 

I also found a set of nice looking 5-spoke 16″ wheels with good summer tires on the local Craigslist. I bought them and that set of wheels served as the “nice street set” of rims.

Tom would be instrumental in teaching me how to wrench on cars, and the Miata was my first trial by fire, sometimes literally. But I eventually joined him and his friends at Hallett, running my very first track day and having the time of my life. That journey will be detailed in a separate post, as it’s a hilarious story worth telling.

Moving on

I would slowly get better at driving the little Miata, and through all of the cone hits, spins on autocross courses, and spins on race tracks, the little car never once complained about all the frankly stupid abuse I was throwing at it.

But all good things must come to an end. In 2009, I had bought the car’s replacement, and it was time to pass the little Miata on to someone else.

I let my fellow car club members know that I was looking to sell the car. One club member mentioned that his elderly mother was looking for a cheap, fun little convertible to drive around before she was pushing up daisies. Well, my car is cheap, I said. Perhaps she’d be interested in it?

That’s how I found myself in an industrial park, showing the Miata to the club member and his 70-ish old mother. She took it for a test drive and loved how it drove. At $1500, the price was right, and the car was released from my ownership that day.

I remembered being tickled pink that out there, someone’s granny was driving around in a Miata was a roll bar, a bright red racing harness, and a tow hitch. I even suggested that she go kick some motorsports butt with the car, but the woman politely laughed it off. The Miata was now strictly a nice street driver.

Postscript

I thought that that would be the last time I’d ever hear about the car. Then last year, out of the blue, a friend from back home sent me some pictures on Facebook Messenger.

My 1991 Mazda Miata, resurfacing 10 years after I sold it.

 

“Look what showed up at [work] today!”

Wow, the car was still alive! I asked my friend if the little old lady was still driving the car. Indeed, she was.

Keep on truckin’, little Miata.