Mazda Eunos VR-Ltd Type B
Discussion
Okay so it's about time I started a thread for my Eunos.
First a little car history. In 2013 my twin brother and I bought our first car together, a lovely pepper white MINI Cooper S. It was in perfect condition, a great car and made fruity exhaust pops, with the insurance costs for a 19 year old shared, so it even made financial sense with a bit of man maths. Unfortunately 3 months into ownership (and 20 minutes after paying a £1000 repair bill - told you, man maths) a slippy road and 'entirely legal' speeds resulted in a complete write-off:
After this, the hunt was on for a new car. Insurance prices rocketed so something naturally aspirated was in order. We bought this RenaultSport Twingo 133. It is the most insanely grippy car, huge fun at reasonable speeds and thanks to an induction kit sounded INCREDIBLE with the throttle wide open! Unfortunately said induction kit was bought from a (unknown to me) convicted paedophile, but that's a whole other story... Here's the car:
However in June my brother moved to Germany and we sold the Twingo. I needed something convertible, RWD and cheap in my life. What else to do than buy an MX5, right?
I almost bought one in February and backed out at the last minute. In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't buy that one - it was a boggo spec UK 1.6 for too much money. After I started talking about them my best friend bought a V Spec and despite being in two minds about it, and some ridiculously high (drunken) offers for it, he fell in love and refused to sell. I needed my own.
So in April I found the car I wanted. Spotted on eBay and bought that day. A week later I flew to Essex and drove 8 hours back to Glasgow with it, never missing a beat. Here's a pic from the day I bought it:
It is the perfect spec. For those who don't know, the VR Ltd came with extras including unique paint, Enkei rims, an uprated ECU, LSD, shortened final drive ratio, MazdaSpeed exhaust, extra chassis bracing, Bilstein suspension and beefed-up anti-roll bars, all of which are still on the car. There were only about 700 of them built in each colour combination (mine being Excellent Green Mica with black leather, the other being burgundy and cream like Neil Carey's that I'm sure we're all familiar with) so it has a bit of rarity kudos too. This particular car was imported by DandyCars in 2006, used for a year then garaged until 2013 when the guy I bought it from acquired it. As a result it is completely rust free - result!
Since buying it I've just fallen head over heels for it! The exhaust makes a great sound, it handles brilliantly and goes nice and sideways in the wet. No it's not hugely fast, not is it the perfect sports car, but that's not what a Eunos is about. Adding to this the car has it's own little quirks (e.g. the rear foglight switch constantly glows red so at night it looks like I'm trying to solicit from my car) but that just makes me love it more! I went to Europe with my best friend in his V Spec and drove some incredible roads like Stelvio Pass, Galvi Pass, Furka Pass and Route Napoleon. After meeting some MX5s from England (shout out to Dan and Moss) I missed mine so badly and as soon as I got home I had to go out for a spirited drive! Wouldn't be right if there wasn't a gratuitous scenery/car pic...
It does have some issues though, but that just means I have a proper to-do list! The paintwork isn't in a great way, with the lacquer peeling from the front wing. The bonnet also seems to have suffered a stampede so is dented all the way up. These will hopefully be sorted next year at some point. The wheels were in terrible condition, pitted and corroded, so they were refurbed straight away in standard silver and now look great. At some point in the car's past an owner has scrimped on a new hood and bought a black vinyl with a plastic rear screen. When I bought the car it was leaking and the plastic screen quickly split, so I bought a hardtop to keep it water-tight over winter and will be replacing it with a green mohair hood with heated rear window to get back to standard.
Inside the car, the seat-bases are looking a bit worn and could do with a re-trim - having been quoted £750 for this work I think I'll need to shop around a little first! The sound system was, quite frankly, a joke. The stereo was a Japanese double-din and didn't work at all, in addition to the passenger-side speakers being burst. These were all replaced and I added the headrest speakers which had been removed at some point. I also don't have a rear view mirror and can't seem to source one, although I'm slowly discovering how easy it is to live without.
When I originally bought the car I wanted to keep everything standard, but my friend's steering wheel just looked stunning compared to the worn leather one on the car so I replaced it with a wooden Nardi wheel. I love it, but it started a 3 month feud between me and the electrics owing to the fact the brake lights and horn share a fuse (is that not just perverted?).
Following this I decided to have a bit more fun with the interior. Being a boring lawyer, I have a natural love of Harris Tweed - armed with my glue gun I set to work and did this:
It's probably a bit marmite, but I love it! Really lifts the interior that was previously all black leather, and it turned out really well with no creases or bubbles.
Next on the job list are getting the heated rear window on my hardtop working and saving over winter for some big changes next year! Thanks for reading.
First a little car history. In 2013 my twin brother and I bought our first car together, a lovely pepper white MINI Cooper S. It was in perfect condition, a great car and made fruity exhaust pops, with the insurance costs for a 19 year old shared, so it even made financial sense with a bit of man maths. Unfortunately 3 months into ownership (and 20 minutes after paying a £1000 repair bill - told you, man maths) a slippy road and 'entirely legal' speeds resulted in a complete write-off:
After this, the hunt was on for a new car. Insurance prices rocketed so something naturally aspirated was in order. We bought this RenaultSport Twingo 133. It is the most insanely grippy car, huge fun at reasonable speeds and thanks to an induction kit sounded INCREDIBLE with the throttle wide open! Unfortunately said induction kit was bought from a (unknown to me) convicted paedophile, but that's a whole other story... Here's the car:
However in June my brother moved to Germany and we sold the Twingo. I needed something convertible, RWD and cheap in my life. What else to do than buy an MX5, right?
I almost bought one in February and backed out at the last minute. In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't buy that one - it was a boggo spec UK 1.6 for too much money. After I started talking about them my best friend bought a V Spec and despite being in two minds about it, and some ridiculously high (drunken) offers for it, he fell in love and refused to sell. I needed my own.
So in April I found the car I wanted. Spotted on eBay and bought that day. A week later I flew to Essex and drove 8 hours back to Glasgow with it, never missing a beat. Here's a pic from the day I bought it:
It is the perfect spec. For those who don't know, the VR Ltd came with extras including unique paint, Enkei rims, an uprated ECU, LSD, shortened final drive ratio, MazdaSpeed exhaust, extra chassis bracing, Bilstein suspension and beefed-up anti-roll bars, all of which are still on the car. There were only about 700 of them built in each colour combination (mine being Excellent Green Mica with black leather, the other being burgundy and cream like Neil Carey's that I'm sure we're all familiar with) so it has a bit of rarity kudos too. This particular car was imported by DandyCars in 2006, used for a year then garaged until 2013 when the guy I bought it from acquired it. As a result it is completely rust free - result!
Since buying it I've just fallen head over heels for it! The exhaust makes a great sound, it handles brilliantly and goes nice and sideways in the wet. No it's not hugely fast, not is it the perfect sports car, but that's not what a Eunos is about. Adding to this the car has it's own little quirks (e.g. the rear foglight switch constantly glows red so at night it looks like I'm trying to solicit from my car) but that just makes me love it more! I went to Europe with my best friend in his V Spec and drove some incredible roads like Stelvio Pass, Galvi Pass, Furka Pass and Route Napoleon. After meeting some MX5s from England (shout out to Dan and Moss) I missed mine so badly and as soon as I got home I had to go out for a spirited drive! Wouldn't be right if there wasn't a gratuitous scenery/car pic...
It does have some issues though, but that just means I have a proper to-do list! The paintwork isn't in a great way, with the lacquer peeling from the front wing. The bonnet also seems to have suffered a stampede so is dented all the way up. These will hopefully be sorted next year at some point. The wheels were in terrible condition, pitted and corroded, so they were refurbed straight away in standard silver and now look great. At some point in the car's past an owner has scrimped on a new hood and bought a black vinyl with a plastic rear screen. When I bought the car it was leaking and the plastic screen quickly split, so I bought a hardtop to keep it water-tight over winter and will be replacing it with a green mohair hood with heated rear window to get back to standard.
Inside the car, the seat-bases are looking a bit worn and could do with a re-trim - having been quoted £750 for this work I think I'll need to shop around a little first! The sound system was, quite frankly, a joke. The stereo was a Japanese double-din and didn't work at all, in addition to the passenger-side speakers being burst. These were all replaced and I added the headrest speakers which had been removed at some point. I also don't have a rear view mirror and can't seem to source one, although I'm slowly discovering how easy it is to live without.
When I originally bought the car I wanted to keep everything standard, but my friend's steering wheel just looked stunning compared to the worn leather one on the car so I replaced it with a wooden Nardi wheel. I love it, but it started a 3 month feud between me and the electrics owing to the fact the brake lights and horn share a fuse (is that not just perverted?).
Following this I decided to have a bit more fun with the interior. Being a boring lawyer, I have a natural love of Harris Tweed - armed with my glue gun I set to work and did this:
It's probably a bit marmite, but I love it! Really lifts the interior that was previously all black leather, and it turned out really well with no creases or bubbles.
Next on the job list are getting the heated rear window on my hardtop working and saving over winter for some big changes next year! Thanks for reading.
So I've rather neglected to update this thread with anything recently - been out enjoying the car a little too much (proof by the number of times I've been mentioned in the Spotted thread!).
The plan had been to replace my hood with a green mohair one with heated rear screen, but I found a decent hardtop for sale in a relatively similar metallic green so snapped that up and put the hood on the back-burner. It makes such a huge difference to noise and heat in the cabin over winter - well worth the investment. Still need to get the HRW wired up so that's a job for the next week or so.
I was also starting to get a bit worried about rust this winter as the car is my daily, and I also found a tiny bubble on the bottom of my passenger door. Struck the fear into me! So last week it went to Preserve & Protect to have the full Dinitrol treatment. I can't thank Mark from P&P enough and he did a really great job removing all trim, cleaning the underside, repairing and treating any rust present, filling cavities with Dinitrol Cavity Wax and undersealing it all. Adding to this he's got two MX5s himself so definitely knows the score! Not only is the car now fully protected but it looks incredible underneath with everything all matt black.
Aside from this I've been busy acquiring some nice JDM parts. I want to keep the car relatively OEM but who can resist a '+' on the end of that? No pictures as of yet but I've picked up some very tasty Mazdaspeed bits...
The plan had been to replace my hood with a green mohair one with heated rear screen, but I found a decent hardtop for sale in a relatively similar metallic green so snapped that up and put the hood on the back-burner. It makes such a huge difference to noise and heat in the cabin over winter - well worth the investment. Still need to get the HRW wired up so that's a job for the next week or so.
I was also starting to get a bit worried about rust this winter as the car is my daily, and I also found a tiny bubble on the bottom of my passenger door. Struck the fear into me! So last week it went to Preserve & Protect to have the full Dinitrol treatment. I can't thank Mark from P&P enough and he did a really great job removing all trim, cleaning the underside, repairing and treating any rust present, filling cavities with Dinitrol Cavity Wax and undersealing it all. Adding to this he's got two MX5s himself so definitely knows the score! Not only is the car now fully protected but it looks incredible underneath with everything all matt black.
Aside from this I've been busy acquiring some nice JDM parts. I want to keep the car relatively OEM but who can resist a '+' on the end of that? No pictures as of yet but I've picked up some very tasty Mazdaspeed bits...
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