When I first saw the car 5 years ago my father owned it and I thought to myself what a silly midlife crisis he's going through, then I got to take it for a spin. Boy was I blown away top down on a sunny day it just felt amazing, but on a terrible apprentice wage and a new loan under my name I knew I couldn't afford to get myself one of these beasts. Nevertheless I watched as he thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of the car. As time went on he decided it impractical and invested in a hilux ute and gave the car to my little brother, now I was jealous an 18 year old who just got his licence with a better car than me. A few months went past and one weekend decided to go round and visit my parents who then told me the mx broke down. The infamous short nose crank had struck again, bummer for him as he couldn't afford to fix it.
Now onto the good part. A month or two had gone by and the car was just sitting under a cover in my parents front yard, I thought to myself that this wasn't right and something needed to be done about it. I hit up my little brother about what he was doing with it and he told me he still couldn't afford to do anything about it as he was only working part time, so I suggested to him that I would buy it off him and much to my suprise he agreed, the next weekend I had the cash in my hand, a spot organised at mx5 plus and a car trailer.
Here's how it was when I got it.
It then went to mx5 plus for an engine transplant as I had no clue what was needed to be done. I went for the 1.8L as I thought a tiny bit more power at the start couldn't hurt. The next step was getting it registered which was easy and I can remember the feeling of happiness as I drove away from the transport department. It was finally mine!
The paint was in pretty terrible condition from sitting outside for so long and I knew I was gonna need to do something about it so I spent a day polishing it and that was that, although it wasn't to be a permanent fix as I'd find out later on. I drove around in it for a few weeks and then the modding bug started, first step was new wheels as I just didn't like how they looked at the time, after a bit of looking around I decided on the koya ae tek in 15" +20
At the same time i purchased a hard top from mx5 plus for that extra sense of safety as it was parked on the street where I was living.
The next step I took was low. It wasn't much as I couldn't afford coils, so I got a set of lowered king springs from a forum member and threw them on, I was happy for the time but I knew it was gonna change soon enough. By this time the paint had really started to irritate me and it was oxidising all over the bonnet and boot. So I but the bullet and decided to do a respray
To this day I'm still finding red paint particles all through my garage.
It was good at the start I felt like there was progress as I would enjoy getting home from work and mindlessly sanding away, the misses absolutely hated it. While I was sanding I had a few ideas pop into my head as to colours and what would work well with it decided to get a film made up at work (I work for a large signage company) and tinted my taillights and just about everything else I could.
One weekend a friend told me he was going to a car meet 'Downshift' and I thought why not and ventured along, was very surprised at how many photos were popping up in the coming days of my car, one of my favs has to be this one
Nothing much happened in the following months, just took my time sanding and getting the car ready for paint, still hadn't chosen a colour. Then in a blur I picked a colour finished the prep and had the car painted! What an exciting time this was.
Will post the rest of the work up in the coming days as plenty more has happened
