1990 Miata with mods real world value?

[ibid]

so here's the deal.. while the car is in the midwest, it spent most of its life in Phoenix, AZ and although its been in the Chicagoland area since 2007, has never been exposed to winter/salt/snow so 100% rust free.. ...and actually in storage now until the end of April.

That being said, it has paint issues (thankfully not a cracked dash) but is all original without any repaint YET.

so here's the details:

5-Speed Manual
Miles: 230K on body but 68K on new motor


NO RUST

clear regular Illinois title.

daily driven in the summers, and it has never seen a winter or salted street.

Currently the car is on 13" Nissan Wheels and skinny tires that used for daily driving, but will include the after market wheels with race tires on them with the car.

The good:
The car is from Arizona, so there is no rust on the body. The shell has 230,000+ miles, but the motor has been swapped with a JDM motor "long nose" instead of the "short nose" 1.6L with roughly 60,000 miles (only driven 8,000 with the new motor, a very strong motor), the car also has a newer transmission, newer rear end, New Fuel Pump, New Fuel Filter, and a Hard top. The water pump and belt have been replaced at the same time as the motor, and the car has had oil changes every 3,000 miles or between track weekends. The heating still works along with the interior fan. The car has dark tint on the windows, Never been hassled by the police with it, but i believe it is about 40% tint, it seems fairly dark, but nice when it is bright outside.


The bad:
The car as stated above is an Arizona car, so it has the typical paint peeling. There are a few spots where the paint is no longer there, and it is just primer. The car has no carpet, and a lot of the interior has been removed however it still has a dash and the stock seats/belts. The car as stated above was slowly being turned into a Spec Miata and it was setup as a track car. It does not have a soft top, as it was removed. The U-Joint on the drive shaft eventually needs to be replaced, I just haven't gotten to it yet, but the car still drives perfectly fine how it is currently. (just makes some squeeking noise when backing up out of the driveway)

Modification List:
- Removed Power Steering
- Removed AC
- Removed Cruise Control

- Koyo Race all-aluminum radiator w/trim SS top trim plate to keep air going into radiator
- straight pipe replaces cat (spec miata part)
- borla SS exhaust
- Kazera KZM white wheels
- goodridge SS brake lines

- spec miata tow hooks front and rear
- JDM replacement motor 2011 (long nose crank so no longer a short nose crank)
- JDM replacement transmission 2009
- spec miata sway bars and end links
- spec miata springs w/5way adjustable shocks
- Momo Competition quick release steering wheel
- Hard Dog hardtop compatible bolt in roll bar installed (uses regular stock seat belts still with stock seats)
- Factory matching hardtop

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[ScratchNSniff]

In the SC/NC/GA area where I buy/sell them it would bring $3K pretty easily...don't see it bringing any more though...I know all markets are different, but here I see that happening...

[ibid]

If I buy, it would honestly be to flip it, and right now I'm looking at parting back towards stock, reinstalling interior to do so but if there is no money to be made, its just not going to be worth my time and effort (seller wants $4500 minimum and was asking $5600 to start)

Here was my thought process:
Hard dog is worth $350 all day long locally... hardtop is worth $1000 easily enough (I literally just sold a hard top for $1000 2 weeks ago).. and happen to have a full soft top ready to install.. and I happen to have a stock steering wheel (momo w/quick release can easily fetch $350 I would think?) daisy wheels and tires along with stock exhaust and stock radiator that can be reinstalled (koyo radiator worth at least $250 I would think?) ....and back in more stock form with softtop instead of hardtop, should be able to get $3800 locally?

One thing I do have to say is the no rust factor here in the rust belt is a pretty big deal (probably a given in NC/GA/SC though)

[kung fu jesus]

A lot of 'ifs', but with a full interior, $3k tops. No AC, PS and a few mods narrows your market. You are competing not only against dropping NB prices, but NA8 prices as well. Someone looking for a toy that may use it for auttox or HPDE is going to already ding it for having a 1.6, where it won't be as competitive.
$3800 sounds fair, but I would expect it to take a bit longer to sell as more NAs come onto the market with Spring around the corner.

[ibid]

^ funny you mention that cause we could technically reinstall PS cause we will be removing it from our spec miata build (a/c we don't have all the components to reinstall though I don't think.. a lot of it but not all of it is still on our SM build right now that has to be removed still)

[revlimiter]

Sorry to say, but the pix make the car look like a basket case. Just from the photos alone, I don't see it topping $1000.

Sorry. Not trying to be an ass. Just trying to give my honest opinion.

Strip off the stickers, deal with the bad paint, and give it an interior again. Once all that is done, I could see it being a $2000-3000 car.

[ScratchNSniff]

Op you are talking about 2 different values...asking for the value back stock vs as-is...would fetch nowhere near $3K stock...as-is I do see it happening though as it is about worst case in terms of piecing it out...

$5k asking price...no way!!!

[ibid]

lol.. was also considering swapping panels with my SM project since it is also white... then it would be a much 'cleaner' look and still 100% rust free. I'm starting to see that rust free is apparently worthless unless it is also near pristine paint and full interior though.. lol


but $1000 as-is is a bit of joke too and crazy lowball IMHO.... seriously, a hardtop alone is $1000 all day long around here.. and rusted to crap without a straight panel and no hardtop fetch $1200 around here anyway...

But thanks for the opinions guys... its all helping me decide what to do (to buy it or not, and if yes, for how much and what to do to it if I do)

[WASABI]

As I understand, you are looking to buy this and flip. If that's the case, and you have replacement parts, and time to invest, you should invest up to $2500.00 in THIS car as is. You would need to invest in a paint job of some sort (-500.00)That way you can make a little profit when you sell her for, say $3500.00.

You could also sell the hard top for $800.00 and the cage for $300, so in reality, you stand to make about $1500.00 profit.

[ibid]

^ someone locally is ready to hand me $350 cash for the hard dog bar actually and would be 1st in line to get it before even placing an ad.. lol

[WASABI]

^ someone locally is ready to hand me $350 cash for the hard dog bar actually and would be 1st in line to get it before even placing an ad.. lol


Well, if you have buyer, then you stand to make more money quickly. I'm thinking that, although a hard top can sell for $1000.00, you might have to wait for someone to pay that, and how long do you want to wait?. In 2011, I sold two hard tops in great condition, one for $800.00 (spec Miata racer), and one for $600.00 (to a local guy I knew). I didn't want to wait for weeks (and countless Craig's List bozos).

I still say the car you posted is between $2500.00-$2700.00

[ibid]

okay. Thanks. Decisions, decisions. I guess we'll see what happens in the grand scheme of things.

I can wait either way on the hardtop though... I've sold 3 hardtops so far (5 if you count Miata's I sold with hardtops included)... 1st one sold literally within 2 hours of listing at $700 with 5 responses within the first 30 minutes and I quickly realized I sold it way to cheap.. 2nd hardtop sold for $1000 and it took about 2 months to sell (never put it on CL and was only via forum postings)... and 3rd top I just sold a few weeks ago (also $1000) so I can wait for $1000 again if I get this car (we have space in the basement were the other one sat for about a year waiting too)... This 3rd one I answered a WTB and didn't even have an ad out FWIW. My intent was to put an ad out in spring again aimed towards track folks.

Anyway, Supposedly someone has $3000 cash ready to give him so he might 'settle' for that and just sell it before I get a chance (I'm not sure its worth $3000 or more to me at this point with the amount of time and effort needed to net any profit out of it) ...so we shall see, we shall see!

[BoBo]

If you are trying to flip this car then you should buy it for 2k or $2500 at most. Assuming you have the parts to bring it back near stock you could probably sell it for 3k if you wait. Don't forget, you still have to make it smog legal assuming that it's required in your state. You could sell the momo wheel, hardtop, and roll bar to make a side profit but you still have to account for the time and energy that you spend on the car. $2000-2500 would make sense. I would leave the paint alone though. Some buyers want oem paint even if it's faded or bad, because once maaco or earl sheib touches the car with cheap paint, the buyer would have to pay extra to strip that paint before having it truly resprayed with quality paint.

I remember someone in my area was selling a 90 white with matching hardtop for $1500 w/ rollbar. The only problem is that the timing belt snapped and the owner didn't want to deal with it. I would have bought it but I already have 3 modes of transportation. It ended up being sold for $1200. The buyer flew from Socal to buy it and repaired it on the spot and drove it home. I mean, the going rate depends on the area as well, good luck.

[ibid]

This one (when it was still 100% stock) was $2500 FIRM in Phoenix, AZ back in 2007. It needed 4 new tires, suspension was totally blown, trans was grinding and engine was down on power as well as needing brakes at all 4 corners, needed a new brake master cylinder and misc other things but he flew down to pick it up with cash in hand and the owner wouldn't budge on price once my friend saw it in person (seller knew he had a sucker with no other way to get home is what I think). ......so he bought 2 new tires before leaving phoenix (2 tires were showing cords) and didn't quite make it all the way back to Chicago without having to buy a 3rd tire on the way home (because 1 more tire corded and was about to blow out if he didn't).

Prices seem to be all over the place is what I've seen. Demand seems to be up again around here with all the "stance" or "low pokes" folks along with 'drift' scene moving out of 240sx and more into Miata now it seems.

[Phatmiata]

I would say based on the mileage, & missing interior $2500, now add $1000 for the hardtop. Making it $3500 as shown in the pics.

Rollbar would fetch $200 ~ $300 in my area

[ibid]

okay thanks

Oh, Illinois has no emissions test for anything 1995 and older so 90 miata doesn't need a cat converter (interestingly enough, our SM build still has a cat and stock exhaust so it would be an easy enough swap to make it stock again anyway in that respect for an out of state sale that does have smog testing for OBD1 cars)