Vindi Roadsters

[wannafbody]

Maybe you can buy one of those half motorcycle helmets for driving with a cage.

[vindi49]

Busy weekend ... managed to sell the Mk2 this morning, the guy is coming back tomorrow with a wodge of cash and I get to keep the Roll Bar I made for it. It's not a surprise that it went quickly as it's a nice piece of kit even though it needs the sills doing. Then I sold the motorbike just before lunch, the guy is coming back with his van early next week as it's pouring with rain at the moment and he decided he'd prefer to keep it (or himself) dry.

So that gives me a nice space in the garage to start work on the green car ... again ... I'll keep it simple this time, I'll have to replace a few items I've sold but a lot I'll just keep standard for the moment. Time will tell if I keep to that!!

Russell.

[WASABI]

Great news Russell! I'll be watching your build/part-out/sell/buy-back/ignore/build back up thread!

[— Madaboutmx5s —]

Nice one Russell. I am glad you have kept the green car and not disappeared off the mx5 scene. My only advice is keep it simple to start off with which seems to be your plan so you get the car up and running as cost efficiently as possible.

[vindi49]

What's the phrase ... it never rains but it pours ... honestly I've done more on various cars / bikes in the last couple of weeks than in the preceding year!!

So, the sale on the Mk2 fell through ... mentioned that on Facebook and a friend mentioned he might know someone that might want it. So the car might be going abroad, I've sent off a load of pics and we'll see. Because that will go via a dealer south of where I'm based, that opens up a possibility for me to buy an RS Limited off another friend of mine ... so I'm really hoping the deal goes through so I can tie it all together ... and dreading it going through because I'll have to somehow tell my wife I've sold a car but apart from an 8 hour interlude while I'm driving / collecting, there will be no less cars on the drive when I get back.

The Mk1 with the cage is being collected on Monday, going straight to my fabricator and he'll check it over and report on how easy it will be to remove the screen and the cage. If all goes well I'll take the green car over on about Wednesday and by the end of the week I'll have exactly what I originally planned ... a full cage in the green car. I'm paying for this with the money from the Mk2 that I sold ... ooops ...

At least I'll never get bored

Russell.

[WASABI]

This is great news Russell. I hope all goes as planned with the green car. And, let's see some pictures of the progress.

[vindi49]

Don't worry I'll keep this thread going ... no idea where it will lead to be honest but it's useful for me to write down my thoughts etc.

So the Silver Mk2 is still here, got a couple of people interested but not at decent money so I'd rather keep it. Looking like I might keep using it for a bit, and then strip it and use some of the running gear to put my green car back on the road. The rest I can sell, and as there are quite a few nice parts I should still break even on the car!

My old Silver Mk1 has been bought, taken to a friends unit and the screen was removed followed by some surgery to get the cage out of the shell. The component parts (shell, windscreen and cage) are now all sat in my garage, waiting for me to work out what will go where. I was originally thinking I'd sell the screen on, but have worked out that I'll need to remove the screen from my green car in order to put the cage in. If I have to do that, I don't want to put a 25 year old screen with a couple of small chips back in to it ... so may as well fit the heated screen instead?

I won't load any pics ... it's not pretty at the moment, but hoping to have the cage sorted and in my car fairly quickly.

Russell.

[vindi49]

Well this seems to go from extreme to extreme ... over the last 2 or 3 days I've spent waaaay too much money on yahoo.jp, mostly buying American parts strangely. Then today I picked up something very special for the car. I'll add some pics later, but this should be a game changer. Many thanks to James aka MadaboutMX5s for finding it for me ... I just hope I can do it justice!!

Russell

[vindi49]

Well it's raining, dull and miserable here so I just about managed to catch a 2 minute break in the clouds to get a few pics of what I've just bought. The pics are a bit rubbish, but first a bit of background on what I'm up to ...

To me, there are a few MX5s out there that really, really stand out.
The Pitcrew is one of them, which I know is a marmite car but I think is great. There are a few great examples out there, and I'm proud to be able to say I know the owners of 3 of them personally, James aka Madabout with his black one, Painter Dave with his amazingly clean car and Delboy who is in the process of restoring his silver one.
Another is the Flyin Miata Martini liveried car, I remember watching their targa plans and feeling so pleased when they did well ... partly because I'd donated some money towards getting them there, and Keith was obviously so overwhelmed by the support he'd received from the community.
Another is Malcolms Yella Terra race car. Probably not that well known outside the UK, but it's a meticulously built endurance race car which I've both helped out with and drawn inspiration from quite a bit. It's yet to really hit it's stride, but the race pace so far is just amazing when it's working!
Probably the most iconic cars to me are the race cars, right from when I first got interested in MX5s, I've always been in awe of some of the wide bodied beasts from Japan and Europe ... the Autobacs car with it's Gulf inspired livery, the Watanabe JPS liveried car, the wide bodied German MX5cup Mk2s and of course the Garage Hundred One car.

Some of the cars are cool partly because of what they have achieved, but if you've ever seen any of them, they have a real presence when you're stood next to them. I love the idea that some cars give you goosebumps even when they are just sat there ... and I've always hoped I'd have a car like that at some point. I've kind of come close, having owned a couple of Pit Crews and the Wataru, but none of them have really got further than sitting on my drive.

A few years back, I managed to buy a kit, well most of it anyway. Based on a Works Anhelo front and rear bumper, and with home made arch extensions it looked really cool ... but it was damaged, one of the rear wheel arches was missing and the other was snapped in half ... and the front wings, although they looked superb with the aggressive arches fully smoothed in, needed ripping apart as the arches were not central. I sold it on, knowing it was going to a safe set of hands and knowing that I'd never get around to sorting it out. In all honestly I've regretted selling it ever since ... until yesterday.

A chance conversation with James aka madabout was the usual affair between him and me, discussing the latest random bits we've bought ... when he dropped a bombshell, that he knew of something for sale that he wasn't sure he would buy ... as per usual I first said "well if you don't want it, I'll have it" before asking for any more details. Not that I cared to be honest, some things you just grab when the chance comes along, and having missed the same item once before I wasn't going to mess this up.

So yesterday, I dropped my kids off to school as usual and then started driving northwards ... followed my Sat Nav for about 3 hours to a random garage in a random housing estate ... picked up said item/s (ha ha, giving nothing away yet ...), handed over more cash than I really can afford at the moment, and then started heading south again hoping like crazy I'd get home in time to pick the kids up!!

The crazy thing is, I barely looked at it as I didn't have time ... once the kids were back home the usual routine kicks in making tea and keeping them entertained I'd put a couple of ads on facebook so had to answer a bunch of messages from people etc etc ... then this morning I had to take the kids swimming and so it goes on ... it wasn't until a couple of hours ago that I managed to get a few minutes to look at what I'd bought. I just hope I can actually get it fitted and looking nice and actually see this project through, because if I can do it well my car really will have some presence at last!

Pic 1 ... can you tell what it is yet?



Wide Arches ... not the best condition, but I've offered them up against the car and the fit looks good. I'll need to do some work to repair the cracks, and remove some previous repairs so I know it's all done properly.

This should be easier to identify ...


Front bumper ... pretty wide and the shape should be recognisable enough. I've checked it carefully and it's genuine and the whole kit is there ... wow, I appear to own a real piece of history!!

I think this has me more excited than owning the Pitcrew or Wataru did, although they were amazing pieces of kit and looked very cool, they lent themselves more towards making perfect and looking after, whereas this kit lends itself to being repaired, fixed onto a car and then just used. Don't get me wrong I'll do it properly and will look after it, but it will be a track car, with a track car look and if it gets a few scrapes that's fine.

I'll add a bit of history of the kit and some examples of it in a bit, but right now I need to go stand in the garage for a bit and drool ...

Russell.

[vindi49]

Oh and in other news, my friend Andrew popped by with the Fastback he's made ... the rear quarter windows will probably be changed for something that follows the lines of the car better but it's not bad at all!!



Russell.

[— Vegard —]

I feel we need some NoPro inspiration in here now! Great find! I've spent my fair share of hours drooling at this machine.

[— Madaboutmx5s —]

Liking the look of the fastback. It will be interesting to see if it becomes available for supply here in the UK.

No worries on passing you the details for he norpo kit. When I phoned to tell you about as not a project I could justify I figured you would be keen. Make sure you do it or I making a trip north to have it from you!

[vindi49]

Thanks guys, and yes, it's a Nogami Project / Nopro kit ... as far as I know it's one of 2 or 3 in the UK so pretty rare! There is a white one out there that has been modified badly following some damage to the bumper, then there is either one or two Mariner blue ones.

I'd love to have some inspiration for this, so any pics you can find of Nopro kitted NAs are very welcome ... as are any links to Nopro stuff

http://www.nopro.jp/?mode=pc

http://www.banovsky.com/archive/kage...mazda-roadster

http://mazdaroadster.net/showthread....-Project-NoPro

Russell

[WASABI]

This is great news Russell. Well done mate!

[— Phatmiata —]

Excellent find

The NoPro front fender flares are exclusive to the Kit, so you will have to cut those T99 and blend them to work with the bumper if that is your plan? Cannot tell in the photos what flares there are but just guessing? One or more looks cut so maybe they are in fact the matching flares? I do recalled a Mariner Blue GT-L in the UK, but never saw but a few pics of it? Could this be the same one?

I have the same GT-L kit here, but dont have the HP to back up the extreme look, so Im saving it for a V8 Roadsters Build

Have these lights that sorta fit, but most likely im going to find some PIAA instead with better light output.


also Bill at MiataRoadster has the similar widebody GHO bumper. (pics from the MiataRoadster Facebook page)





rumor has it someone else in the USA has this full kit but it has yet to surface yet?