Background: Mid-40's, Married w/ 2 kids, Mechanical / Civil Engineer, Career Navy

Prior 'Toys': '68 Corvair, '73 Opel GT, '86 Toyota MR2

Oldest daughter about to turn 13, so went on the hunt for an early Miata as a father-daughter project to become her first car. Target goal was stock, cosmetically clean, mechanically neglected. Got way off-course and ended up with a '96 M-Edition, cosmetically scruffy, FM II turbo ( at $4,500 it was like buying the turbo kit + hardtop...and getting the car + other mods thrown in for free... )

Mods:
FM II Turbo Kit ( 2560R )
Link Engine Management
FM Lightweight Flywheel
ACT Clutch
FM Springs & Sway Bars
FM Stainless Dual-Tip Exhaust
AGX Adjustable Struts
Konig Helium Rims
Dunlop Direzza DZ102

PROS: Mods done, Like-new Robbins soft top, hard top ( non-matching )
CONS: Dings / dents / scrapes, Seats need recovering

Was saved from an estate sale by local ASE mechanic who is into Mitsubishi turbo scene. He freshened up the stock 1.8, daily drove for 2,000 miles, then found a Galant VR4 project to restore.

Plan is to do some minimal cosmetic improvements ( DIY seat recover, full wet-sand / buff, refinish hard top)... daily drive for a couple years here in VA... then strip it apart as an Exocet donor for my Navy retirement present to myself...

 

Waiting for VA plate to arrive...

 

Beautiful gorgeous car! What a freakin' steal. Problems of living in the Bay Area, there would never be a deal like this lol. Do tell more about the Opel!

 

College toy... New England rust bucket... 1.9L automatic, 'Fireglow' orange (under the shitty black respray)... slow as molasses, but it turned heads in Northern Maine and gave me my first taste of 2-seater sports cars! Sold it to fund the MR2 when I graduated... then shipped that black beauty down to Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico for our first Navy tour, where it also turned heads as an oddity... :-)

 

SamNavy is local to you and a Navy guy. He can probably give you a ton of help. For new seat covers I highly recommend Interior Innovations. I have 2 sets from them and both are very good. Its less then $400 for both seats in real leather from Pakistan. Usually takes 2-3 weeks to get them in.

 

I watched that car for sale for months...I shoulda bought it, but oh well. I thought there might be a reason it was for sale so long.

 

Seller was pretty distracted by work, kids little league, etc... project car sale was definitely a back-burner concern...

I also wrote it off initially as a quick sale not worth pursuing... was surprised to see it lingering on Craigslist... we both theorized that the pricing was too high for the high school 'stance' crowd... but condition wasn't pristine enough for the 'Cars & Coffee' guys... daily-driver '10 footer' mod'd to hell toy is a pretty limited buyer demographic... :-)

 

Awesome lead... nice that they can do the 'M-Edition' embroidery for an extra 25 bucks... (and know how to deal with the revised '96-'97 seat bottom foam shape...)

 

...after a few month & miles into the adventure...

1) Interior cleaned up well, with exception of the seats. Picked up a pair of '93 cloth seats to recover (currently trying to figure out how to merge them with the '96 seat pans that have different seatbelt mounting.)

2) Exterior buffed out to maybe a 7 out of 10... won't matter once it goes Exocet next winter...

3) Smoking valve stem seals are really annoying... not an urgent fix, but feels so ghetto to be driving around with the car randomly blowing smoke screens...