The coolest Miata I've seen in a while
#2
Damn, that is cool! (Except the cone air filter)
#4
How do you figure that's a Miata? It's a custom chassis with a Miata drivetrain and suspension. It's no more a Miata than this thing is a Miata: http://www.build-threads.com/build-threads/mx520/
It's not my place to tell you something is or isn't cool but if you are basing the coolness of this car on the notion that it's a uniquely modified Miata, I think it's misplaced.
It's not my place to tell you something is or isn't cool but if you are basing the coolness of this car on the notion that it's a uniquely modified Miata, I think it's misplaced.
#5
Registered User
Did you not see where the chassis was made FROM the wrecked Miata chassis? It is more Miata than anything else. That is too cool. Not all to my taste but an awesome idea.
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#8
The suspension and drive train assembly from a Miata will drop out as one piece. That's what he did. The Miata was wrecked and he pulled the suspension and drivetrain out as one piece, shitcanned the Miata chassis and body panels, and built a new chassis and body around the dimensions of the drivetrain and suspension components.
Don't take my word for it, this is what the builder of the car has to say:
Thanks to Autoblog and others for running me as a find of the day!
Hello folks, Im selling one of my toys so I can build another, this car was featured in Ratrod magazine, as well as being included in a few art shows localy. it turns heads all over the place. Im asking 8,000 or best offer. here is a copy of the article from the magazine, it describes the car pretty well:
Generally the last two things you’d expect to find in the same sentence are Ratrod and Miata.
I purchased the stock Mazda Miata when I moved from New York to Georgia for graduate school. A broken motorcycle was my only vehicle at the time, so a running car sounded great regardless of make and model There were problems, of course: a ripped convertible top, power steering out, broken AC (a tragedy in sweltering Georgia), and an interior that smelled like cat urine. Nevertheless, I drove it around for about seven months. Then, one fateful summer day, a ten-wheel dump truck plowed into the rear end, shoving the little Miata down Route Ten. The Miata had always sparked my interest as a as a custom vehicle platform. After all, many of its components become donor pieces in kit cars and there have been a few Lotus Seven style replicas based entirely around the Miata platform. This wreck was the perfect excuse to experiment.
After a quick recovery and some insurance money, it was time to begin picking up parts and fabricating the frame for the Miata Ratrod. My research didn’t turn up much information on Miata hot rods, aside from a collection of insane human beings who swap LS Corvette motors into Miatas. For the most part I was doing things backwards by keeping the Miata drivetrain and ditching the body. The most logical starting point was simply pulling everything off of the wreck. Underneath, there is a very convenient frame member connecting the back of the transmission housing to the rear differential. From there I could establish a parallel rail chassis design using 2x3” rectangular tubing. The stock rear suspension sub frame was bolted onto the parallel rail frame, and the front sub frame was sleeved and welded directly to the front of the custom frame. This allowed me to keep the stock geometry and front steering rack mounting position. The stock front coil-overs were a bit large for an open-fendered car, but scrounging through some parts bins turned up a stock Suzuki GS500 rear mono-shock. Surprisingly, the Suzuki shock is a direct bolt-on to Mazda Miata A-arms! After a quick Ebay search, a passenger coilover was on its way. Motor mounts on a Miata engine are not unlike most American V8s and were simple to fabricate from 3/16th plate.
The Miata Rat Rod body is pure Frankenstein. The Model A cowl, gastank, left and right doors are all from the same generation but different cars. For the more complex back end, I cut and bent sedan rear doors around a 15-gallon beer keg (which eventually became the gas tank). The turtle deck is from a 20s Model T, widened about 4 inches. The floor and interior are handmade from old 18ga sheet. Stock 70s Monte Carlo seats fit nicely in the Model A body. The front grill is made from two fender skirts narrowed and turned sideways, covering a used aftermarket all-aluminum radiator.
The 1.8l Miata engine remained mostly stock. 130hp and 114lbs of torque move the 1400lb car down the road nicely. I fabed Zoomie headers but later changed to a single lake style header, using a gutted Honda CB muffler. For convenience, a flex tube and cone filter replaced the stock intake. The stock ECU and electronic fuel injection stayed on the engine and keep it running smoothly — so smoothly that two weeks after getting the car running, I had few hesitations about driving 1800 miles round trip on Route 81 between Athens, GA and Ithaca, NY. I didn’t need to open my tool box once."
I hate to sound like a dick but I happen to know enough about cars to know what I'm looking at and I find it to be annoying when someone like you tries to argue with me while relying on some half-assed editorial as proof, when anyone who has half a clue about cars should be able to look at the pictures and draw a clear conclusion.
Again, it's not my job to tell that this isn't cool but if your basis of it being cool is because this is a modified Miata, you are quite mistaken. The author of the article sucks but that should be painfully obvious.
Is it safe to assume that I'm in for some explanation where you challenge the definition of the word chassis in order to back peddle? That's what happened in that last one of these threads about the Mustang chassis with a Gallardo drivetrain and body parts, and this one is even more obvious than that. A corner from your man card please.
#9
Registered User
No backpedaling from me. You just dug deeper than I did. From the original autoblog link -- "The frame was custom-fabricated from the remains of the crash-damaged car."
Still a very cool car. You can stay off my lawn too...
Still a very cool car. You can stay off my lawn too...
#10
Sorry I flipped out. Thanks for not dragging this on forever.