Laurence’s MX5 Thread

[Mr Laurence]

At the start of 2020, on a bit of a whim I bought a blue NB Mx5 for £700. I put a cheap hardtop, some Tein coilovers and an RS front lip on it and drove pretty much everywhere in the thing. Despite having more than 180,000 miles on it by the time I sold it 4 years later, over the course of 4 years it only let me down twice. Of all the (admittedly not very many) cars I’ve owned, it’s been the one I’ve enjoyed by far the most. I even did a few autotests in it

Unfortunately, all good things have to come to an end; though it didn’t need sorting when I sold it, rust was really starting to set in on the chassis rails and sills. Bearing in mind the mileage, that the thermostat was stuck open, water leaked onto my lap when it rained and the oil that it burned/leaked, I knew deep down that sorting it wouldn’t make sense, so I sold it to a local MX5 breaker who took the hardtop off and sold the rest. It’s still out there, in better hands than mine competing in hillclimb events, which is nice.

 

since getting rid of it last year, I’ve always wanted another, but this time the nicest one I could realistically find. So after months of searching, at the start of May, when this one showed up locally, I knew I had to buy it;

It’s a 1990 1.6 Uk spec NA, and probably the most original one I’ve ever come across. Even down to the cassette deck and bill of sale from when it was new. It’s solid in all the usual MX5 problem areas, and apparently had a respray about 10 years ago. 
 

I haven’t had chance to do much with it yet beyond just driving it, but there’s a few fussy little details I want to get on and sort, as well as finding a hardtop before the end of the summer, so I’ll try and document all of that here.