LOH's MX5 diaries....
Discussion
Due to some prompting on another thread I've decided to actually post an update on the diaries, in my defence there have been some good excuses for my laziness on this as all will become clear. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I was posting while waiting to see a consultant and due to the speedy nature of the good old nhs I'm only now laid up at home post knee op so I have no excuse not to write up what's been happening with the car.
At least while typing this it will stop me from constantly browsing PH and autotrader for something else to buy
So, das nürburgring. What a weekend we had
As mentioned on the previous post, the track was open Friday night and the full weekend. When speaking to the other lads who were still on their way over (they live down south so were taking the Chunnel) on the phone I mentioned my purchase of a 25 lap ticket much to their amusement. Everyone knows how many closures there are on a full weekend right?
Friday evening was one of those perfect nurburgring nights, warm balmy weather, beautiful sunshine and probably only 50 cars in the car park. Bliss. I can't remember how many laps we did but it was probably half a dozen and most importantly they were in those perfect conditions-just right for getting your eye in (if not for the poor eiffel bugs that come out at evenings)
The little mazda (apart from a London Taxi-long story!) is by far the least powerful car I've ever driven out here and I'll be honest, it takes quite a bit of getting used to. Where the car is a joy on the road, every lack of horsepower, or more importantly torque is amplified. Having driven many, many laps of this place I consider myself pretty accustomed to what I'm doing but looking back I perhaps didn't get quite everything out of the car I could. I'll come to that later....
Regardless, it was great fun to be back and although my lines might not have changed, at least it was interesting to have to rethink how to actually drive the course. Flugplatz felt like it could be taken flat, some balls might be required so maybe build up to that one!
Saturday and Sunday were pretty much a repeat of the amazing weather and we had some great fun. The car wore it's dirt well!
Although it taunts me with what might have been, I love the fact that my mate steve is still enjoying his Megane R26.R and bringing it out on these trips. I love that I still get to drive one but more importantly for me, it gives me a constant benchmark against any car I now own against what I still consider to be the best car I ever owned (see the old mini GP thread for example).
The differences between the mazda and the meg are pretty stark. On a track like the 'ring, you simply can't excuse the difference in power (or more importantly torque). As fun as the little mazda is, and it is great fun on a hot and sunny day you lose out big time on any hill!
Now I know track days aren't racing, but like it or lump it TF at the 'ring is like a race! Progress through traffic is important if you're not to spend the entire lap in a traffic jam but the problem, like every day driving I suppose is the typical point and squirt driving styles of your average driver. Witness the following video as an example;
http://youtu.be/6zpfbAAkMEU
Now, I probably don't help matters completely with my driving style but I have excuses for that! It's the 'ring, and crashes can have incredibly far reaching consequences. I can and do sometimes take a technically incorrect line through corners but I've found that although they might cost me time, they do however keep the car settled (pflantzgarten 3 for instance) or they offer a better view of a potential hazardous area (Adenauer forst). The problem in the mazda of course is that any little time wasted puts you at a disadvantage when trying to work through traffic.
The Megane, whilst not the worlds fastest car crucially just has enough power to generally get you through. Is the mazda too slow? Not at all, not in the grand scheme of things but could it do with another 50 or so foot pounds of torque? Emphatically yes, I'd imaging one of those bbr turbos would be enormous fun and extremely competent on track
Oh and we'd used up all the laps by Saturday night! Saturday night was a great night out with the boys for a steak on a stone as always, then we decided to have a midnight walk on the track, right about the same time as the fireworks at the truck racing started. Lovely
Sunday (with more laps purchased), was almost as much fun. Almost as it as always was busier which inevitable led to a couple of closures. One particularly bad one was a rolled golf, as usual at brünchen so we decided to gawp at the wreckage and grab some lunch at the van up there. While sunning ourselves the track re-opened only for a British S2000 to collect the barrier 3 or 4 times (££££) before proceeding to drive off leaving fluids everywhere :angry: can't imagine he got far having left both bumpers with number plates still attached at the scene of the crime. Following this a 190e cosworth decided finish off what was left of the Armco in the same place.
This might have also been the time a man in a tractor also decided he wanted to lap the ring and proceeded to try to crash his way through. No I'm not making this up! (A local crazy according to our friends there).
http://youtu.be/sIsMYiHDLt8
(Not my video!)
It was all getting a bit daft so our friends decided to head back relatively early so they could work Monday whereas we still had another night and low and behold everyone else had the same thought. As the track was open to 7:30pm we hung about and got another round of great laps in post 5pm.
http://youtu.be/_sLikP9nIQM
Great stuff. We journeyed back at a leisurely pace on the Monday, I'm ashamed to say with the roof up as we'd had so much sun over the weekend and were beginning to look like lobsters! The car performed perfectly and even returned great MPG, the new suspension set up calmed the floaty feel the car had as standard and the tyres gave brilliant grip as always without robbing the car of its playful nature.
At least while typing this it will stop me from constantly browsing PH and autotrader for something else to buy
So, das nürburgring. What a weekend we had
As mentioned on the previous post, the track was open Friday night and the full weekend. When speaking to the other lads who were still on their way over (they live down south so were taking the Chunnel) on the phone I mentioned my purchase of a 25 lap ticket much to their amusement. Everyone knows how many closures there are on a full weekend right?
Friday evening was one of those perfect nurburgring nights, warm balmy weather, beautiful sunshine and probably only 50 cars in the car park. Bliss. I can't remember how many laps we did but it was probably half a dozen and most importantly they were in those perfect conditions-just right for getting your eye in (if not for the poor eiffel bugs that come out at evenings)
The little mazda (apart from a London Taxi-long story!) is by far the least powerful car I've ever driven out here and I'll be honest, it takes quite a bit of getting used to. Where the car is a joy on the road, every lack of horsepower, or more importantly torque is amplified. Having driven many, many laps of this place I consider myself pretty accustomed to what I'm doing but looking back I perhaps didn't get quite everything out of the car I could. I'll come to that later....
Regardless, it was great fun to be back and although my lines might not have changed, at least it was interesting to have to rethink how to actually drive the course. Flugplatz felt like it could be taken flat, some balls might be required so maybe build up to that one!
Saturday and Sunday were pretty much a repeat of the amazing weather and we had some great fun. The car wore it's dirt well!
Although it taunts me with what might have been, I love the fact that my mate steve is still enjoying his Megane R26.R and bringing it out on these trips. I love that I still get to drive one but more importantly for me, it gives me a constant benchmark against any car I now own against what I still consider to be the best car I ever owned (see the old mini GP thread for example).
The differences between the mazda and the meg are pretty stark. On a track like the 'ring, you simply can't excuse the difference in power (or more importantly torque). As fun as the little mazda is, and it is great fun on a hot and sunny day you lose out big time on any hill!
Now I know track days aren't racing, but like it or lump it TF at the 'ring is like a race! Progress through traffic is important if you're not to spend the entire lap in a traffic jam but the problem, like every day driving I suppose is the typical point and squirt driving styles of your average driver. Witness the following video as an example;
http://youtu.be/6zpfbAAkMEU
Now, I probably don't help matters completely with my driving style but I have excuses for that! It's the 'ring, and crashes can have incredibly far reaching consequences. I can and do sometimes take a technically incorrect line through corners but I've found that although they might cost me time, they do however keep the car settled (pflantzgarten 3 for instance) or they offer a better view of a potential hazardous area (Adenauer forst). The problem in the mazda of course is that any little time wasted puts you at a disadvantage when trying to work through traffic.
The Megane, whilst not the worlds fastest car crucially just has enough power to generally get you through. Is the mazda too slow? Not at all, not in the grand scheme of things but could it do with another 50 or so foot pounds of torque? Emphatically yes, I'd imaging one of those bbr turbos would be enormous fun and extremely competent on track
Oh and we'd used up all the laps by Saturday night! Saturday night was a great night out with the boys for a steak on a stone as always, then we decided to have a midnight walk on the track, right about the same time as the fireworks at the truck racing started. Lovely
Sunday (with more laps purchased), was almost as much fun. Almost as it as always was busier which inevitable led to a couple of closures. One particularly bad one was a rolled golf, as usual at brünchen so we decided to gawp at the wreckage and grab some lunch at the van up there. While sunning ourselves the track re-opened only for a British S2000 to collect the barrier 3 or 4 times (££££) before proceeding to drive off leaving fluids everywhere :angry: can't imagine he got far having left both bumpers with number plates still attached at the scene of the crime. Following this a 190e cosworth decided finish off what was left of the Armco in the same place.
This might have also been the time a man in a tractor also decided he wanted to lap the ring and proceeded to try to crash his way through. No I'm not making this up! (A local crazy according to our friends there).
http://youtu.be/sIsMYiHDLt8
(Not my video!)
It was all getting a bit daft so our friends decided to head back relatively early so they could work Monday whereas we still had another night and low and behold everyone else had the same thought. As the track was open to 7:30pm we hung about and got another round of great laps in post 5pm.
http://youtu.be/_sLikP9nIQM
Great stuff. We journeyed back at a leisurely pace on the Monday, I'm ashamed to say with the roof up as we'd had so much sun over the weekend and were beginning to look like lobsters! The car performed perfectly and even returned great MPG, the new suspension set up calmed the floaty feel the car had as standard and the tyres gave brilliant grip as always without robbing the car of its playful nature.
Thanks chaps more to come....
more to come....HorneyMX5 said:
Cracking update.
What size and ET are those Rotas? My wife is after some new wheel for her NC and the fitment on those looks perfect. The standard wheels look a bit lost when they're lowered a bit.
I'll have to double check but from memory they're 17"x 7.5J, 5x114.3 fitment and offset ET45.What size and ET are those Rotas? My wife is after some new wheel for her NC and the fitment on those looks perfect. The standard wheels look a bit lost when they're lowered a bit.
So what else has been happening? Rather a lot, I even managed to find a new place for the car to sleep at night. This is less about the mazda but it might explain where I go next with the car......
Some time shortly before the ring trip we stumbled upon the most expensive bargain we've ever seen. We've been (I've been) finding excuses to take the top down in nice weather as much as possible and although last summer wasn't a scorcher the ease of which the roof goes down and the ability of the seats and heaters to keep you toasty means it was getting used more and more.
Nothing simpler than a text message explaining the wife had forgotten to organise something for tea and a large yellow ball I the sky prompted me to suggest a country pub and a run out in the car, who said romance was dead
Being a Monday oop north you can find that a lot of pubs can be closed or not serving food but being a nice summers evening with a convertible it wasn't really much of a chore to tootle about with the top down searching out nice little pubs that are actually in the business of feeding you.
There's a particularly nice area to the east of our city that clumps together some beautifully quaint little villages around a lovely little market town and it tends to be where we head. We've often looked around at the houses and thought one day....
Anyway, with the pubs we liked the look of not serving we decided to head back to our reserve that we know serves great food. On the way we passed through this little market town and had a bimble down our favourite road there. We have some friends who live on this particular street and it's well own as one of those "landmark" addresses, the type that definitely gets noticed (rightly or wrongly).
I still have no idea why we detoured down this way but I just had a feeling there was a house up for sale there, which was pretty pointless in itself as we wouldn't be able to afford there anyway. The land the street is built on was owned by a prominent local family who decided to sell off the land plot by plot and it sort of became the place to live. It's on a big hill with established trees and south westerly views over the fells with each plot being half an acre minimum. Residents are mostly surgeons, ex-mayors etc etc
Anyway, here's this house up for sale. It looks empty and we go for a prod around, the neighbours give a wave as if to say it's ok and we completely fall in love with it. It's completely what we would buy if we won the lottery.
After about half an hour of slack jawed noseying we head off to the pub and jump on the wifi to have a look at it. The details are poor with crap pictures but crucially the price is only a couple of hundred thousand out of our price range
I do however know the owners of the estate agency and wouldn't feel embarrassed about making further enquiries. We did look at the mortgage calculators online while having tea and were slightly buoyed by the fact that if we were prepared to be absolutely skint and got a sizeable chunk off the asking price, it might not actually be out of the question should some nutter actually lend us the money!
Following dinner, we went back for another look and that pretty much sealed it. I tend to get these ideas every so often....
So having impressed upon the agents we emphatically weren't looking at moving and loved our own house we made a viewing and completely fell for the place. For once in my life I didn't try and blag the seller and laid my cards on the table, we wanted it but couldn't afford it-we would see what we could scrape together and make an offer, if he thought it was taking the piss then fair enough but I wouldn't be coming back with more-I didn't have any more!
Surprisingly, we managed to find some lender crazy enough to let us borrow our maximum against the house and I approached the agent with an offer. Now, the house had been on the market before and they couldn't sell it, the recession was on and to cut their losses (they had more property) they rented it out to a surgeon and his family and they wrecked it. Now it was back on the market and needed someone to look past the dated decor (the bathrooms and kitchen was new but I don't think the soft furnishings had been replaced since it was built in 2002) and the damage, every wall was marked, every carpet stained etc.
Basically our house was what everyone wanted, a three bed in an affluent area that everyone wanted to live in. His was a tired mansion that needed a buyer who wanted a project. I'd give him our house and some cash. This amounted to way less than he wanted for his but ours would sell in days and he could get his property shifted.
It doesn't look like much, but we loved this house and especially considering the location it was all we thought we wanted
13 days after first seeing the place we shook hands on the deal and we were on the move. And brassic.
But as this is the readers cars section and not homes and DIY you'll be wanting to know about the car facilities, of which we have a large Tarmac drive, large gravelled paddock that'll comfortably park four plus a large garage and workshop. Happy days
Hopefully the last snow of the year!
Sunset on our first night
Garage floor needs some attention.
I've yet to get a photo with the whole house in as it's quite wide fronted, I'm not sure if this panoramic shot does it much justice. Anyhow, most importantly the road to Alston and the hartside pass starts pretty much at the end of my drive
Some time shortly before the ring trip we stumbled upon the most expensive bargain we've ever seen. We've been (I've been) finding excuses to take the top down in nice weather as much as possible and although last summer wasn't a scorcher the ease of which the roof goes down and the ability of the seats and heaters to keep you toasty means it was getting used more and more.
Nothing simpler than a text message explaining the wife had forgotten to organise something for tea and a large yellow ball I the sky prompted me to suggest a country pub and a run out in the car, who said romance was dead
Being a Monday oop north you can find that a lot of pubs can be closed or not serving food but being a nice summers evening with a convertible it wasn't really much of a chore to tootle about with the top down searching out nice little pubs that are actually in the business of feeding you.
There's a particularly nice area to the east of our city that clumps together some beautifully quaint little villages around a lovely little market town and it tends to be where we head. We've often looked around at the houses and thought one day....
Anyway, with the pubs we liked the look of not serving we decided to head back to our reserve that we know serves great food. On the way we passed through this little market town and had a bimble down our favourite road there. We have some friends who live on this particular street and it's well own as one of those "landmark" addresses, the type that definitely gets noticed (rightly or wrongly).
I still have no idea why we detoured down this way but I just had a feeling there was a house up for sale there, which was pretty pointless in itself as we wouldn't be able to afford there anyway. The land the street is built on was owned by a prominent local family who decided to sell off the land plot by plot and it sort of became the place to live. It's on a big hill with established trees and south westerly views over the fells with each plot being half an acre minimum. Residents are mostly surgeons, ex-mayors etc etc
Anyway, here's this house up for sale. It looks empty and we go for a prod around, the neighbours give a wave as if to say it's ok and we completely fall in love with it. It's completely what we would buy if we won the lottery.
After about half an hour of slack jawed noseying we head off to the pub and jump on the wifi to have a look at it. The details are poor with crap pictures but crucially the price is only a couple of hundred thousand out of our price range
I do however know the owners of the estate agency and wouldn't feel embarrassed about making further enquiries. We did look at the mortgage calculators online while having tea and were slightly buoyed by the fact that if we were prepared to be absolutely skint and got a sizeable chunk off the asking price, it might not actually be out of the question should some nutter actually lend us the money!Following dinner, we went back for another look and that pretty much sealed it. I tend to get these ideas every so often....
So having impressed upon the agents we emphatically weren't looking at moving and loved our own house we made a viewing and completely fell for the place. For once in my life I didn't try and blag the seller and laid my cards on the table, we wanted it but couldn't afford it-we would see what we could scrape together and make an offer, if he thought it was taking the piss then fair enough but I wouldn't be coming back with more-I didn't have any more!
Surprisingly, we managed to find some lender crazy enough to let us borrow our maximum against the house and I approached the agent with an offer. Now, the house had been on the market before and they couldn't sell it, the recession was on and to cut their losses (they had more property) they rented it out to a surgeon and his family and they wrecked it. Now it was back on the market and needed someone to look past the dated decor (the bathrooms and kitchen was new but I don't think the soft furnishings had been replaced since it was built in 2002) and the damage, every wall was marked, every carpet stained etc.
Basically our house was what everyone wanted, a three bed in an affluent area that everyone wanted to live in. His was a tired mansion that needed a buyer who wanted a project. I'd give him our house and some cash. This amounted to way less than he wanted for his but ours would sell in days and he could get his property shifted.
It doesn't look like much, but we loved this house and especially considering the location it was all we thought we wanted
13 days after first seeing the place we shook hands on the deal and we were on the move. And brassic.
But as this is the readers cars section and not homes and DIY you'll be wanting to know about the car facilities, of which we have a large Tarmac drive, large gravelled paddock that'll comfortably park four plus a large garage and workshop. Happy days
Hopefully the last snow of the year!
Sunset on our first night
Garage floor needs some attention.
I've yet to get a photo with the whole house in as it's quite wide fronted, I'm not sure if this panoramic shot does it much justice. Anyhow, most importantly the road to Alston and the hartside pass starts pretty much at the end of my drive
A busy year with the MX5 then, although not quite as car based as my usual years. As I mentioned, the house has received a lot of work since we moved in, I won't bore everyone with the details but we've refurb'd it pretty much completely-there's still plenty to do but it's all "extras" now, those little things that will complete the house to make it exactly as we want it.
The little mazda has been pressed pretty much into daily use and it's excelled at the job. My commute is now a glorious B road blast through some gorgeous scenery and the car gets a proper chance to warm up and I can stretch it's legs. There are a few choice overtaking places and the car is great fun to work through the gears, if it isn't (or doesn't look like) raining the roof comes down too.
No, as mentioned there isn't much in the way of torque but seriously, when has anyone complained about using an MX5's gears. The gear change itself is built for every road tester's cliché, my best way to describe it is it's exactly how you imagine changing gear will feel when you're a kid. Strange today's kids will more than likely mimic flicking a paddle when they pretend "race car".....
First on the mammoth list of jobs on the house however was getting my cinema installed (priorities LOH) and I'm lucky enough to have a joiner who's a best mate to give me a hand building everything in return for an endless supply of Sunday Roasts. It's his mini that's taken up residence in the garage and he's the one who comes along to the ring with me these days so as a treat and to say thanks I booked us on a track day at Croft towards the end of last year.
The weather forecast wasn't great and sure enough, we had the first half dozen laps with the roof down before the heavens opened. And then it rained some more.
Obviously as the forecast was terrible I bolted on the 888s and hoped for the best If you've used them you'll know that they're actually very good in wet conditions but things do become a bit squiffy with standing water. Unfortunately, with regards to standing water there were sections of the track that were completely underwater!
To be fair, when the weathers this bad a little car like the mazda is probably as much fun as anything out there, we had to back off at around 60-70mph as there was too much aquaplaining but there was plenty of opportunity to work on your oversteer skills and reach the edge of grip.
To be honest, by half 3 the weather was getting worse and Ross (the other driver) was not having as much fun as he obviously didn't want to stuff his mates car so we came home, via the Hartside Pass natch
No photos unsurprisingly as we didn't really want to leave the dry car but here's a video to show how bad it got
https://youtu.be/jOUJFgcVTaY
The little mazda has been pressed pretty much into daily use and it's excelled at the job. My commute is now a glorious B road blast through some gorgeous scenery and the car gets a proper chance to warm up and I can stretch it's legs. There are a few choice overtaking places and the car is great fun to work through the gears, if it isn't (or doesn't look like) raining the roof comes down too.
No, as mentioned there isn't much in the way of torque but seriously, when has anyone complained about using an MX5's gears. The gear change itself is built for every road tester's cliché, my best way to describe it is it's exactly how you imagine changing gear will feel when you're a kid. Strange today's kids will more than likely mimic flicking a paddle when they pretend "race car".....
First on the mammoth list of jobs on the house however was getting my cinema installed (priorities LOH) and I'm lucky enough to have a joiner who's a best mate to give me a hand building everything in return for an endless supply of Sunday Roasts. It's his mini that's taken up residence in the garage and he's the one who comes along to the ring with me these days so as a treat and to say thanks I booked us on a track day at Croft towards the end of last year.
The weather forecast wasn't great and sure enough, we had the first half dozen laps with the roof down before the heavens opened. And then it rained some more.
Obviously as the forecast was terrible I bolted on the 888s and hoped for the best
If you've used them you'll know that they're actually very good in wet conditions but things do become a bit squiffy with standing water. Unfortunately, with regards to standing water there were sections of the track that were completely underwater!To be fair, when the weathers this bad a little car like the mazda is probably as much fun as anything out there, we had to back off at around 60-70mph as there was too much aquaplaining but there was plenty of opportunity to work on your oversteer skills and reach the edge of grip.
To be honest, by half 3 the weather was getting worse and Ross (the other driver) was not having as much fun as he obviously didn't want to stuff his mates car so we came home, via the Hartside Pass natch
No photos unsurprisingly as we didn't really want to leave the dry car but here's a video to show how bad it got
https://youtu.be/jOUJFgcVTaY
I was wondering what had happened with the MX-5, and it seems not a lot but also a lot! Cracking place you've got there, and I am sure you'll be more than happy you've stretched yourselves in a few years. It seems to me every time I paint the garage floor it always looks ruined soon after. I'm guessing warm/wet tyres sitting on it don't help...
So that about brings me up to date with the car, apart from the mk4 MX5 launch thing we went on its all been pretty mundane stuff. Speaking of which, last summer the local dealers organised a road trip out to a local stately home to check out the new car for existing owners.
It was held here;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comlongon_Castle
They had a good turn out! Not my usual car trip and even in my thirties I was by some margin the youngest driver there, the wife looked more like someone's grand daughter
Still, not our usual crowd they might not be but everyone seemed pleasant enough and it was quite nice to see the old boys enjoying their toys. Quaint I think is the word....
Anyway, as nice as the mk4 is, we weren't interested in trading up so we left the OAP's grilling the designers and did the tour of the castle.
In the interests of market research they all seemed to like the car but (& I'm not joking) much despair was levelled at the lack of glovebox. Where does one keep his travel sweets? In my humble, like or loath the new looks (& I love it now) the interior is an epic step forward in quality and honestly looks like a car in a price bracket above.
Would I like a new mk4, honestly I love the look of them now especially the new folding roof RF version. Stunning! It's funny that I wasn't sold on it to begin with but its one of those cars that needs to be seen in the flesh. It's so small it seems to photograph awkwardly but when you're stood next to it it's a pretty little thing. Especially in that metallic red they do
I think my main objection to the new car would be the cost to change, which isn't really mazdas fault but I got such a good deal on mine, spending another £10k to trade up would feel a bit pointless. I could be tempted by that RF however....
If only my white alloys would fit
Regardless, I am tempted to change out of the car. I keep promising myself another 911 of some sort plus I'd love to get another Megane R26.R in the garage it's just that the right car, or most probably the right deal hasn't come along yet. So the little Mazda is in the PH classifieds as we speak. I'm not sure who'll be looking for a year old mx5 on there but we'll see if it generates any interest (I doubt it will but hey ho).
If it stays it's no great shame as I love using it day to day, especially now the weathers picking up. Ive also just booked another double header at the nürburgring and spa next month It'll be a pretty quick trip away with a trackday with destination nurburg filled by the sky limits event at spa the following day, it'll be nice to get the 888s back on the car again
So we'll see. Another few days of great weather might convince me to keep it, especially out at the ring but I've sort of convinced myself a change is needed. The Mazda doesn't have isofix you see, and pretty much 9 months to the day after the Monaco/Morgan road trip one of these little buggers turned up.....
And no, I didn't call her Morgan
It was held here;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comlongon_Castle
They had a good turn out! Not my usual car trip and even in my thirties I was by some margin the youngest driver there, the wife looked more like someone's grand daughter
Still, not our usual crowd they might not be but everyone seemed pleasant enough and it was quite nice to see the old boys enjoying their toys. Quaint I think is the word....
Anyway, as nice as the mk4 is, we weren't interested in trading up so we left the OAP's grilling the designers and did the tour of the castle.
In the interests of market research they all seemed to like the car but (& I'm not joking) much despair was levelled at the lack of glovebox. Where does one keep his travel sweets? In my humble, like or loath the new looks (& I love it now) the interior is an epic step forward in quality and honestly looks like a car in a price bracket above.
Would I like a new mk4, honestly I love the look of them now especially the new folding roof RF version. Stunning! It's funny that I wasn't sold on it to begin with but its one of those cars that needs to be seen in the flesh. It's so small it seems to photograph awkwardly but when you're stood next to it it's a pretty little thing. Especially in that metallic red they do
I think my main objection to the new car would be the cost to change, which isn't really mazdas fault but I got such a good deal on mine, spending another £10k to trade up would feel a bit pointless. I could be tempted by that RF however....
If only my white alloys would fit
Regardless, I am tempted to change out of the car. I keep promising myself another 911 of some sort plus I'd love to get another Megane R26.R in the garage it's just that the right car, or most probably the right deal hasn't come along yet. So the little Mazda is in the PH classifieds as we speak. I'm not sure who'll be looking for a year old mx5 on there but we'll see if it generates any interest (I doubt it will but hey ho).
If it stays it's no great shame as I love using it day to day, especially now the weathers picking up. Ive also just booked another double header at the nürburgring and spa next month
It'll be a pretty quick trip away with a trackday with destination nurburg filled by the sky limits event at spa the following day, it'll be nice to get the 888s back on the car againSo we'll see. Another few days of great weather might convince me to keep it, especially out at the ring but I've sort of convinced myself a change is needed. The Mazda doesn't have isofix you see, and pretty much 9 months to the day after the Monaco/Morgan road trip one of these little buggers turned up.....
And no, I didn't call her Morgan
Edited by LaurasOtherHalf on Friday 25th March 09:22
last update 25th of march? only a month ago.....
So DN14 was booked, along with an inevitably excruciating visit to Spa too (let's be honest, the kemmel straight is really going to expose the MX5's lack of speed!) and all I had to do was get over this knee operation and enjoy the car.
The ferry was booked for last thuesday (the 25th of april?) with us getting out to the ring for TF on the wednesday night before doing the track day on thursday then moving over to belgium for the spa day on friday.
As most people convalescing from a big operation will tell yu however, boredom is a killer. I'd exercised a bit of time updating this thread but i'll be honest, it was taking way longer to recover than first thought. This obviously meant lots of time on PH and Autotrader looking at what was available. Last sunday,mainly through boredom after watching the motoGP I decided to go and look at the local prestige car dealers to see what a couple of cars looked like in the flesh.
As it happens the dealer now shuts on a sunday so with nowhere to go i call in to see the lads i know at Honda, I might as well take a look at the new Type-R. They have one available to demo so away we go for a bit of a run. What a nice car! They do a few figures for me (I'm still not really thinking about this) and what surprises me is the CAP value on the Mazda;
Between £!6-16.5k as part exchange (check out page 1 of this thread to see what i paid).
Now, I don't know where they got that figure, or even if they were booking it as the new model but I didn't ask questions. I must admit I was interested. However, this was Sunday and on Tuesday I would be heading out to the ring and then the car would have another 1k miles on it, maybe if a deal were to be done.....
Being busy, I asked my sales guy to bring their demo over to show the wife Monday night. She thought it looked ridiculous but was impressed i was looking at are that could fit our child seat so she rolled with it.
As it happened, they had a car unregistered in the showroom that was in the expect spec and colour i would have chosen, we did a bit of bartering and the top and bottom of it was if they could supply the car i wanted before i needed to leave for the ferry the next day i would take it.
And drive it straight to the 'ring.
Any one want to buy any spare wheels with track rubber for a mk3 MX5?
So DN14 was booked, along with an inevitably excruciating visit to Spa too (let's be honest, the kemmel straight is really going to expose the MX5's lack of speed!) and all I had to do was get over this knee operation and enjoy the car.
The ferry was booked for last thuesday (the 25th of april?) with us getting out to the ring for TF on the wednesday night before doing the track day on thursday then moving over to belgium for the spa day on friday.
As most people convalescing from a big operation will tell yu however, boredom is a killer. I'd exercised a bit of time updating this thread but i'll be honest, it was taking way longer to recover than first thought. This obviously meant lots of time on PH and Autotrader looking at what was available. Last sunday,mainly through boredom after watching the motoGP I decided to go and look at the local prestige car dealers to see what a couple of cars looked like in the flesh.
As it happens the dealer now shuts on a sunday so with nowhere to go i call in to see the lads i know at Honda, I might as well take a look at the new Type-R. They have one available to demo so away we go for a bit of a run. What a nice car! They do a few figures for me (I'm still not really thinking about this) and what surprises me is the CAP value on the Mazda;
Between £!6-16.5k as part exchange (check out page 1 of this thread to see what i paid).
Now, I don't know where they got that figure, or even if they were booking it as the new model but I didn't ask questions. I must admit I was interested. However, this was Sunday and on Tuesday I would be heading out to the ring and then the car would have another 1k miles on it, maybe if a deal were to be done.....
Being busy, I asked my sales guy to bring their demo over to show the wife Monday night. She thought it looked ridiculous but was impressed i was looking at are that could fit our child seat so she rolled with it.
As it happened, they had a car unregistered in the showroom that was in the expect spec and colour i would have chosen, we did a bit of bartering and the top and bottom of it was if they could supply the car i wanted before i needed to leave for the ferry the next day i would take it.
And drive it straight to the 'ring.
Any one want to buy any spare wheels with track rubber for a mk3 MX5?
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