Hey there. I guess before we get into this thread I should give you some background information.
I'm Ryan, and I own a 1996 Montego Blue Roadster. I don't have a real car history in my family. No uncle who built drag cars, no dad who kept a cool old Lotus in the garage or anything. In fact, my family couldn't care less about cars. How I ended up getting into them is thanks to media. Anime and manga specifically. I had been into that stuff for a while thanks to Toonami, but when I began pursuing series on my own I came across Over Rev! and a few other manga series like Countach. Those led to me watching and reading Initial D and Wangan Midnight, which led to gaining an interest in cars. Despite my new and deep interest in cars I didn't know much about them, just that I wanted one.
Years later I turn 15, it's time to get my first car, and I'm on the prowl for something cool. I came across a lot of cars I would have liked to own. MR2s, a 2.5RS GC8, this one gold EP3 I wanted dearly. But I didn't get any of them. What I ended up with was a 2000 Saturn SL2. Dad put the stop on any dreams of a cool car. In high school my sister had totaled three cars, and he just wasn't going to have it with me. So I got stuck with an automatic sedan that had no clear coat, a weird smell, a headliner that was falling down, and a jamin' cassette player. I really hated that car at the time. I resented it more than anything else going on in high school. Looking back on it, I'm thankful for it. It was still a pile, but like my dad assumed would happen, it got totaled. On a particularly icy day my senior year I was driving to school and a college kid came barreling around me trying to rush to class. He lost control of the Ram he was driving and took off most of my car from the drivers door forward. I was able to drive it home, but that would be it's last trip. After his insurance stopped being dicks and accepted their driver was 100% at fault I got a fat check for my car. In fact, it was a fatter check than the one I wrote to buy the car in the first place.
This led to my second car, which I actually have a picture of.
Between my fat insurance check and all the money I saved working in high school I decided it was a good idea to buy a new car. I had wanted an FR-S, but it was still in it's long cycle of delays. I shopped a few cars, but ended up with a Turbo Genesis Coupe as it seemed the closest to the car I originally wanted. This was the first car I bought with my own money, the first car I did any work on, the first car I did a road trip in. In short, it was the first car I did car stuff with. The Genesis was, as far as cars go, a pretty good car. But I never got my heart into it. I owned it for a few years, but sold it as I was supposed to move to Canada for school and I planned to exploit the 15 year import law up North, and get myself an Evolution V. It was nice to no longer have to deal with it's payments or insurance. Getting a new car right out of high school maybe isn't the smartest thing to do.
As you may have guessed from the "I was supposed to" in the above sentence, I didn't actually end up going to school in Canada. Due to some unforeseen circumstances I ended up having to bail on my plan at last minute. Like, three days before school started last minute. I still went to Vancouver and had a nice week long vacation, but I lost a big chunk of change on deposits for tuition, housing, and the Evo.
Upon getting home one of my first thoughts was "I need a car" It felt so weird to not have my own car after having one for six years. I had a better idea of what I wanted and what I was getting into this time. I shopped for 240SXs, MR2s, the same kind of stuff I wanted when I was 15. But it turns out these cars don't show up that often in West Texas, and when they do they're pretty junk or pretty over priced. About six months ago I started looking for a Miata. I wanted an NB2. The styling really sat well with me, as did a lot of the aftermarket available. It had the right combination of aesthetics for me. Turns out Miatas are just as hard to find here as any of the other cars I was interested in. In the six months I was looking I think I saw all of three NBs. You can imagine I started looking at NAs after a while. But again, overpriced, junk, overpriced junk. There just wasn't anything. Until I saw a Craigslist ad for an 1996 Montego Blue NA with 108000 miles. The ad wasn't heavy on details, but was well written and didn't seem too boastful. So I called my bank and arranged some funds, called the seller and arranged a meeting time, and drove the three hours to go see the car
I had expectations going in, that being the exterior would be really great as described, but at the cost of a rough interior and mechanics. Oddly, the opposite was true. The interior seemed really fantastic for the age of the car and it felt really great to drive, but the outside had some hail damage and some paint fade. It wasn't awful, much better than the Saturn I had when I was 15, but not as good as I hoped. The owner, a kid my age, and I talked it out and I ended up getting the car + some extras for a price I felt fair, and in fact had been told by some former Miata owning friends was a good deal for the condition of the car.
We have had bad weather for a few days, but I was finally able to give the car a little wash and take some pictures. And please forgive me for these being cell phone pictures. I don't own a real camera anymore, so it's the best I can do for now.
The previous owner said he bought it as a toy, but just never drove it. He said the timing belt maintenance was done about 5K miles ago. And sure enough, his story about not driving it checked out. The sticker on the engine says the timing service was done about 5000 miles ago. In 2012. I'm apparently the third owner, and I'd wager a lot of the exterior problems come from the PO leaving the car parked outside. I know the biggest dent, on the drivers side rear quarter, is from where his dirt bike fell and the handle bar hit the car. It's mechanically stock, and it needs the be detailed to bring the paint up since almost all the scratched look super minor. It needs new tires, and I need to figure out why the cabin light doesn't work. I need to find a better mat solution too. It get's pretty muddy here so I'm not too hot on carpeted mats. I'm not 100% on the door cards the PO made either. The quality is really nice and sometimes I feel like I'm sitting in someones living room, which is a neat feeling. He's sending me the original cards, so I can switch them back if I decide to.
Other than that, the car seems great I really enjoy driving it. It's the first standard car I've owned, and the better I get at it the more I'm having fun with the car. I've got a few ideas of where I'd like to take the car, but this thread may get slow at times and really serve as more a car journal than a true build thread, so I hope you'll bear with me through those moments. I've noticed users on these forums tend to have names for their Roadsters. I've never named a car. It just isn't something I've ever felt to do. But I feel kinda different about this one. Maybe somewhere down the line a nickname will develop for it.
I guess that wraps this introduction up. Thanks for sticking with me.
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Originally Posted by AutOtaku
