How Can You Tell if a Miata is Happy?

by | Jan 20, 2020

Today’s post by Joe Farace

Riddle me this: How can you tell if a Mazda Miata is Happy?

Simple: You count the bugs in its teeth.

 

And if you think that seeing shark’s teeth on an MX-5 is an unusual occurrence, I want to refer you to the post, Our Cars: 1991 Mazda MX-5 Miata. During during Mary’s and my search for a Miata that she could autocross one dealer told us, “Bob in Parts is trying to sell his ’93. It’s got a lot of miles (186,000 it turns out) but the engine is all chrome and get this,” he says excitedly, “It has teeth.”

That can was a silver MX-5 that smelled so strongly of cigarette smoke that Mary passed on it. The white 1991 Miata that we eventual bought had around 96,000 miles and was a great and trouble free car. She cried a little when we sold it but sometimes cars get sold for reasons that you can’t control. This was one of these cases. And while she enjoys the Beetle convertible that she lets me drive occasionally, she still gets wistful about her first generation Miata.