I’m not new to MX-5s. I’ve now had 3 of them. The first one was an NBFL (Mk2.5) S-VT. That one met a nasty end when I used it to pick a fight with a bridge. It was no great shame though. In the 2 months I had it I kept discovering more and more problems—the thing was a total rotbox. I replaced it with a pretty much mint NBFL (Arctic edition) and had a lot of fun with it for over a year. It needed a few things to suit my driving style—most notably an LSD and a set of decent suspension—but I really liked it. Then about 6 months ago, I had a moment of madness and sold the car to buy a diesel Volvo estate.
Predictably, it wasn’t that much fun to drive. On top of that I had just been introduced to AutoSOLOs and after marshalling at a couple of events I really wanted to compete. Sure you can do it in any car, but I have a competitive streak and a big heavy diesel just wasn’t going to cut it. No, what I needed was another MX-5.
This time it had to be an NA (Mk1). I could be all cliché and claim I wanted pop-up headlights but honestly, I don’t care about that. I would even go as far as to suggest the NBFL looks better and is altogether the nicer car!
No, the reason it had to be a Mk1 was the Peril. Anytime I was given the keys to it and allowed to play, I just kept thinking it was better somehow. It certainly felt lighter than the later cars. Sure it’s less comfortable, noisier, has more rattles and I really don’t like the seats, but my mind was made up, and after just 6 months of not owning an MX-5 the hunt was on for the next one.
I had some very specific requirements though, so I couldn’t just go out and buy any old one. I laid these requirements out for the search:
| Requirement | |
|---|---|
| Drivetrain | Mk1 Early 1.8, Manual |
| Condition | Grotty, but fairly rust free |
| Price | Dirt cheap |
| Colour | ABSOLUTELY NOT RED. ANYTHING BUT RED |
That last requirement may be irrational to most, but I hate red. I think it’s the worst colour the MX-5s have ever come in. Red fades. Red fades bad. You can never match red if you need to repaint it. In fact, now that I think about it I don’t like any red car. I also don’t like tomatoes and they’re red. I just have something against red.
The Search
I was only searching the classifieds, auctions and the usual suspects on and off for a couple of weeks. There was no real rush. I did find a few cars on eBay that I was interested in—not interested enough to go and view mind you—but I did bid on a couple.
Eventually, I found one on eBay that I really wanted, it was rough around the edges with some very obvious rust on the front wings – an easy replacement. Its MOT history was a bit suspect and I’m sure there would have been a lot more rust hiding away. Still, I did bid on it with the intent to win, but as is often the case, someone beat me to it. I was a little dejected, but had another look on eBay for any ending soon and found a really shabby looking red one. It was going cheap and there were only minutes left – not sure why I hadn’t seen it before.
I had a look over the pictures and had a quick read of the description. I didn’t like what I saw and the description was lacking in detail. Still, I was curious enough to do an MOT history check and found that it had never failed an MOT and never carried any advisories that would be cause for concern. However it did show that it had not been to an MOT station in over 3 years. So after another look at the pictures, I dismissed the car. All of that black paint on the sides could be hiding anything, and any MX-5 at this price point had to be a rotbox. I did not want it.
Somehow though, despite actively complaining about the car and stating many times to myself that I didn’t want it, I still placed a bid. Luckily I was outbid and I was genuinely happy about that. Then in the heat of the moment, I placed another bid for the princely sum of £425 with 0 seconds to go. eBay told me I didn’t win and I literally breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately though, my bid was so last second the page hadn’t updated properly. A quick refresh showed that I actually had won the car, and that its location (which I hadn’t given much thought) was 250 miles away. If that wasn’t enough, this car is red. RED. I HATE RED.
Buying a car sight unseen isn’t that unusual for me, I’ve only ever bought cars that way… or at night when it’s chucking it down with rain… or during a blizzard. I’m sure I will come unstuck someday, but luckily not this time.
The Teardown
After getting it back to home base it needed a thorough going over to find all the problems that needed sorting prior to the MOT. Right up until this point, I wasn’t feeling good about the purchase at all. What if it turned out to be hiding all kinds of rot? Would it be like Gwyneth and just lead to more and more work?
As it turns out however, while the car has some serious cosmetic issues both inside and out, it is solid. Remarkably solid. Solid enough, that it still has its original sills and spot welds on the arches!
I know that it looks like there is quite a bit of rust on the nearside arch, but in reality there is very little. It definitely illustrates how the passenger side of cars really suffers far more than the driver’s side. As I was looking for more rust in the usual places—behind the rear sills, front wheel arches etc—I managed to destroy a hammer trying to break through. Admittedly it was a small hammer, but I hadn’t dared use bigger!
It wasn’t all good news, there were a few things to fix.
- Suspension collapsed and springs broken into many pieces (offside rear was in 6 pieces. 6!)
- Lifter tick on cylinder 1
- Offside rear brake caliper handbrake mechanism seized
- Nearside rear brake pad friction material separated from backing plate
- Pop up headlights not popping up (Dan declared the car entirely pointless with this discovery)
- Number plate reflective material badly degraded
- Very minor tear in soft top above plastic window
- A couple of bulbs out
- Wet boot
- Dented offside front wing
- Minor surface rust and missing paint on nearside rear arch
- Mismatched, dry rotted tyres
- Interior green with mold and utterly filthy
- Absolutely atrocious paint
Completing our very own buyers checklist, the car scored a healthy 38 / 47 – that’s top end ‘Roadcar’ territory!
Yea, no one else could believe it either. At this point the car was christened Winston. Why Winston? Because no one else had any better ideas.
All of these problems were easy fixes and I had planned to put my old set of MeisterR coilovers on him anyway. After fixing most of the problems on the list, giving him a quick service, deleting the air conditioning and throwing on a borrowed set of wheels and tyres, he was declared ready for the MOT. The short ride to the MOT station was the first time I had driven Winston and I drove him hard. Hard enough to leave it ticking away madly and still be steaming out of the exhaust with the engine off.
Unfortunately, he failed the first MOT due to a corroded brake line I had missed during the teardown. Luckily, that was another quick and easy fix and it passed the retest in no time. The MOT pass was celebrated with a burnout and peel out of the garage forecourt. This led to the discovery of the best news yet.
WINSTON HAS AN LSD. Based on the age of the car, we expect it to be a Type 1 Torsen with a 4.10 ratio. This will be confirmed at some point in the near future – likely when it gets swapped out for the Helical ATB previously featured on the site. I love that diff.
Conclusion
Let’s review the original buying requirements:
| Requirement | Result | |
|---|---|---|
| Drivetrain | Mk1 Early 1.8, Manual | Yup, 1993 1.8 Eunos |
| Condition | Grotty, but fairly rust free | Amazingly, yes. Bang on. |
| Price | Dirt cheap | At £425 I think its a bargain |
| Colour | ABSOLUTELY NOT RED. ANYTHING BUT RED | 🙁 |
Well, 3 of 4 isn’t bad I suppose and the paint work is so bad I don’t have to care about it. I am still going to need to change the colour at some point though – try as I might, I just can’t live with the red. At least he’s not a rotbox unlike our very own Gwyneth.
So now that Winston has officially become part of the BOFI fleet and is driven daily, what’s next for him?
