There is no doubt that the humble Mk1 MX-5 - at least in 1.6 form - is a marmite car. Many decry it as being a 900kg questionmark over one's sexuality, others cite that it needs at least another 40bhp. But like any car with a following, its owners are stone mad about them.
The best way I saw this described pre-purchase was in a raging argument on Pistonheads where a user wrote that the only way to 'get' MX5s was to buy one and wait about 3 months, at which point something would 'click' and you would at that point decide that you would never be without one.
Now don't get me wrong - I am not a fanboi, and believe that to be a petrolhead should definitely come with strong opinions but that you are only limiting yourself by sticking to one marque, or one era, or one country. I would describe myself as a German car fan - specifically of what I see as a golden era between the late 1970s to early 1990s - but I've tried Italian cars via a host of Fiats and one Lancia, and French stuff - mainly hot hatches - but had never bought a Japanese car.
The MX5 was to change that. When I started searching it turned out quickly that the quest would be a difficult one. The really good cars were €4-5k and even those came with a jobs list. The average cars were €2-4k but were a total lottery. Often neglected third cars in a three car household, they were generally bought by folks who were bad at buying used cars and then generally neglected. Poor cars were €1-2k but when I viewed what seemed like a couple of cheap ones it turned out that there were some which had solid shells but usually needed plenty of consumables. Crunching the numbers led to the conclusion that with the price of consumables and parts such as vinyl roofs a cracking car could be put together for around €1500 on top of the purchase price, so this just meant finding the right starting point. Ideally a pre-1991 (for classic insurance) Eunos which would come with toys and an LSD.
Importing was not really an option as VRT, travel and the currency being weighted in favour of sterling would swallow half the budget.
In November 2010 I found what I was looking for in Claremorris, Co. Mayo. There was snow on the ground. The car was standing in a puddle of ice. It was no fun inspecting it, but with time a conclusion was reached that this was the one - it had a solid shell, engine and gearbox were in good shape and there were plenty of haggling points on consumables. It was a 1992 black V-Spec Eunos which had only landed in the UK in 2007 or so. I really liked the spec, and the colour. I also liked that it had an almost fresh 2-year NCT and that I only had to wait another month to get a classic insurance policy on it, something which tends to bump the price up on them slightly when they reach that point or totally remove them from the market as they then fall into firm hands.
Initially the seller wouldn't haggle too much so I walked without much of an argument, figuring that a sheddy convertible would be hard to shift in the west of Ireland four weeks before Christmas in the depths of the worst recession the country had ever seen.
Sure enough, a week later he was back and a deal was concluded via text. It was one of these classic moments where both of us thought he had robbed the other on the transaction. One of my fellow bloggers drove me up, money was exchanged and off I went home in my new gay car.
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