Anybody on here built or owned a RetroForza?

[Jonty355]

I'm interested in making one of these up, maybe for track use, but then if I go mad and make it look a bit too special it may just be for a weekend drive.

Anybody got any experience with them?

[Furyblade_Lee]

Its only a rebody so cannot be too bad to do in the big scheme of things. I will comment no furthur as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and have just bought a lovely MK1 MX5.

[patmahe]

I looked into this a while back and sent e-mails etc... got no response, I'm not sure the kit is still available. I also think I've since come to my senses, the Mk1 Mx5 is a classic roadster in its own right now, no point spending a lot of money to make a great car look slightly different IMO.

But then I'm not you so if you do go ahead with it please post about it would be interesting to see how it turns out.

[Jonty355]

Will do!

Its just one of the ideas I'd had recently. The idea is to make it look more authentic as a 60's racer rather than the demo car. Though I like the picture of the black car with the chrome grill.

Still very tempted by the Corsa Spyder too. Though they're a little bit rarer.

[Chris71]

I guess the insurance will be a bit cheaper than a standard MX5 (on a kti car policy), but I'm struggling to see any other benefits to be honest. If you have a prang on track it would be easier to replace standard Mazda panels and the like.

There's a massive amount of MX5 support, so it'd be an easy car to modify and maintain, but so would a regular one.

I think you'd have to very specifically want a Retroforza for it to make sense.

[Jonty355]

Yeah, its more that I want the shape of it. Its just more interesting. Its not for any sort of performance advantage obviously.

It was just one of my many ideas for a next car. Just cant make my mind up what I want next or how much to spend etc. I think I peaked too early!

[Mr2Mike]

Jonty355 said:

Yeah, its more that I want the shape of it. Its just more interesting.

I think it's a really nice looking conversion personally, but having a small 4 pot engine under the Ferrari-esque exterior would spoil it a bit for me. I've heard the 2.5L Mazda V6 engine can be shoehorned into the MX5...

[Furyblade_Lee]

For £2k you can supercharge the MX5 engine with 100% reliability. Giving you at least 160bhp, and teh supercharger uses a vacum to effectively disconnect it when on light throttle giving great mpg. 200bhp is possible. If you do build a Retroforza PLEASE gut the interior and do it in turned aluminium or something, that for me was the worst aspect, the interior was obviously modern MX5!!!

[singlecoil]

In the States they fit small block V8s to MX5s, especially the LS series. Not too difficult apparently.

[Mr2Mike]

Furyblade_Lee said:

For £2k you can supercharge the MX5 engine with 100% reliability. Giving you at least 160bhp, and teh supercharger uses a vacum to effectively disconnect it when on light throttle giving great mpg.

It's still a small four pot though, no amount of supercharging will make it's sound match the looks of the car...

[Chris71]

Mr2Mike said:

Furyblade_Lee said:

For £2k you can supercharge the MX5 engine with 100% reliability. Giving you at least 160bhp, and teh supercharger uses a vacum to effectively disconnect it when on light throttle giving great mpg.

It's still a small four pot though, no amount of supercharging will make it's sound match the looks of the car...

Will an Alfa V6 fit?

[seansverige]

If that's your bag (baby), the Simpson Miata Italia manages to avoid the long nose look of the retroforza but unfortunately it's an american kit



http://www.simpsondesign.net/a_MofM.htm

the site looks a little dated but there's a facebook page so maybe that's why...

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Simpson-Design-and-D...

just don't look at the Miami Roadster

Of even less use is the Monocraft MM1, which is Japanese, based on S2 MX-5 and most likely discontinued - here's a pic anyway


There's a kit (well, replacement bumpers anyway) to make it look like a Lotus Elan - which I guess is taking things to their ultimate conclusion, used to see one on British plates on a regular basis near my folks place in Ireland so someone in Europe was doing them


(looks better when the paint matches )

You could do a lot worse - there's a (mainly) rogues gallery here

http://www.paul-davis.com/miata.html

sample:

[Chris71]

seansverige said:

Of even less use is the Monocraft MM1, which is Japanese, based on S2 MX-5 and most likely discontinued - here's a pic anyway

On the upside, you might get people mistakenly assuming you'd bought a Stylus...

Apologies Sylva/Fisher people, I'm only joking...