Next best thing to a motorcycle! We bought this used in 2005 when we decided to sell Esther our first Protege. I really wanted another bike, but since I work with teenagers, it's a lot easier to get parents to let me take them places in a convertible than on a bike. It's also a lot easier to talk in a convertible.
Lightweight, quick, responsive, the Miata has few faults. It's small; at 5'11" I'm a bit cramped, but less so than on a sport bike, and more comfy over long distances. It has almost no trunk space. But otherwise, about all I could wish for are the optional hard top (didn't come with it), a bit more power (esp. with the A/C on), and a bit of lumbar support. That said, it's still incredibly fun to drive. Sometimes I jump on the highway or a back road late at night and just drive for a couple of hours. Top down, of course; the top stays down when I'm in the car unless it's around freezing (even then, maybe), raining harder than a drizzle, or my wife or someone is in the car who needs to arrive somewhere with their hair in good shape. I just run the heater or AC when the temp gets too extreme, with the top down anyway. Then again, I often just left the windows down and moon roof open on previous cars!
A 130K+ miles, it's needing some work; it's using a quart of oil every 3K miles and the clutch throwout bearing is starting to growl. The camshaft sensor had to be replaced about 1,000 miles ago.
Easily the most fun vehicle I've ever owned. Able to leap
across intersections in negative time, this turned out to be
Motorcyclist's "Motorcycle of the Year" for 1983. At
the time, it was the closest thing you could get to a race bike
for the street - except it actually worked as well on the street
as it did on the track. Usually I ride things into the ground,
then trade or sell them. This one wass slowly being brought back to
life. Not as good as bikes now, of course, but way too good to
throw away. Only 4 per dealer were sent into the USA, and the
vast majority of them got wrecked. I finally sold it to a friend
who wanted a bike to work on, because I had neither the time nor
the money to rebuild it. I hated that.
For a while at JHK I was working a later shift (we were time-sharing the limited terminal ports on a ModComp), so most days I left 2-3 hours before I needed to be at work (about 3 or 4) and took the looooonnng way in. One day right after I got the 'Ceptor, Mike Williams (on his brand new Honda Magna 1100) and I were ripping up some twisties that had moved from rural into suburban, without really paying attention to that minor detail, when a (what else) Volvo pulled out from behind some bushes in front of us. A truck was coming the other way on this two lane road, there was a narrow bridge ahead, and all we could do was stop as hard as we could. I'm ashamed to say I was doing 100 on a suburban neighborhood street! That car grew really fast, and Mike's light grew to fill my mirrors, and I managed to match the car's speed about 2 feet off her bumper. It was a good 5 minutes before my heart rate dropped below 100. No other bike I've owned could have stopped that well - and it's a good thing Mike was well behind me when it happened. I breathe hard today just writing about it.
Had my first major wreck on it. Now it languishes in the garage, awaiting new mufflers, seat, fairing and some engine work (probably the cam chain tensioners).
In actuality this was a street bike with a high pipe and slightly knobby tires. Ran like a scared rabbit up to nearly 45, and took a few more minutes to reach its clocked top speed of 50MPH (laying on the tank helped). It was green, green, green. Bright, shiny, green. Got as much dirt time as street time, and friends and I ran it into the ground. Did I mention how green it was? I had a quite non-matching, gold, metalflake helmet. Should never have sold it, but felt it was too uncool for college. Fool. In the meantime, though, Martin O'Rourke and I rebuilt, tuned, and otherwise mechaniced the Yamaha every chance we got. I'm certain no non-racing two-stroke ever got more attention than this one!
My first non-Miles-powered bike. I was as green as this thing was. Which explains what happened next.
This one actually belonged to Mike Williams, who loaned it to us on several occasions. As Mike said, "It's not a real GTO. This was the year after they killed those off. It's a Nova with a hood scoop and Pontiac decals."
But, this car could bury many a GTO. It was Mike's project car (or as his wife Melinda said, "toy"). My wife used to get annoyed with me; as she said, "you drive like a redneck in it." But Mike always made me promise to drive it "...right, like it's meant to be driven, like I would drive it - don't baby it." I never had the chutzpah to take it around curves on two wheels at 70 or 80 like Mike did - it was his pride and joy, and I wouldn't chance it. Eventually, Sharon drove it, and the same "evil look" came over her, and she peeled out. After that, she drove it as much as I did, and never harassed me again. In fact, she loved trying to smoke me when I was on the Interceptor!
I was once driving a co-worker and our boss and his wife in the Goat, when I mentioned The Dukes of Hazzard. Michelle started choking, unable to decide whether to scream in horror or laugh out of control (yet she watched Dallas). We were approaching an intersection with a lovely, great bump in the middle of it, so I floored it and let out my best rebel yell. She managed to sit forward as the trannie shifted, and grabbed my throat just as we became airborn from the bump. I managed to croak out that I wasn't slowing until she let go, which she did. She screamed at me. Craig (her husband) sat bug-eyed. Tom just said, "Not bad. Can we try again?". Michelle wouldn't speak to either of us for several days, and Craig looked at me strangely for a while. Didn't seem to affect my review...
A fun little monster, able to wheelie at will, pretty good handling. Kind of small for me, and it buzzed a good bit on the interstate, but it seldom stayed behind anything I wanted around, and it put up with a lot. Larry wouldn't take anything for letting me use it for 6 months (he only rode during the summer), so I did lots of maintenance for him. I put a new tire on. A $20 Cheng-Shin. Pulling out of the dealer's, I cranked it hard left and opened it up, and the rear end stepped out about 30 degrees. Flat tracking! Oops. Maybe it's just new. 1,000 miles later I realized - it's just cheap. Bought Larry a much nicer tire and used the first one for a planter.
Nothing special in itself, but it was the first bike that was mine, all mine in my adult life. Sharon was even excited about it. Rode it much too hard. Within under 40,000 miles it was toast - I played in the dirt on this behemoth, spent way too much time doing 80 MPH or idling on the interstates around Atlanta, tore up backroads - generally gave it no respect - but regular maintenance. Had a blast anyway. Eventually sold it for next to nothing at a yard sale, but by then I had 30,000 on the Interceptor! We'd tried the Want Ads, but the only calls were far more interested in Sharon's anatomy than the bike.