Posts Tagged ‘convertible’

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What Happens When Retro Gets Old? 1992 Mazda Miata

September 18, 2013

The 25th anniversary of the Mazda Miata is just around the corner. Think of the compact roadster competition at that point – the costly, long-in-the-tooth, over-luxified Alfa Romeo Spider, the wedgy MR2 available with T-tops, and what else? Triumph, MG, Fiat, and Jensen Healey had all disappeared in the past 10-15 years. So things were looking pretty bleak for the affordable sports car, until this came along – the 1990 Mazda Miata, introduced in late 1989 to long waiting lists and crazy dealer markups. Since then, they’ve been quite successful, and you can find an example of the first generation car for pretty short money. One example is this 1992 Miata for $2995 at a consignment lot in Santa Clara, CA, just near San Jose.

1992 Mazda Miata left front

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What the? 1983 Datsun 200SX Convertible

August 22, 2013

Although we’re generally infatuated with oddball European cars, occasionally we like to venture beyond our standard fare and dig up truly rare things like coachbuilt Japanese convertibles from the early 1980s. For those of you who weren’t around then, the death of the convertible was a common theme for automakers and car enthusiasts. There was a major push for passive safety (witness the addition of park-bench sized bumpers, impact bars in the doors, foam rubber dashboards, and open cars such as the Fiat X1/9), and the lack of a roof just didn’t seem compatible with our dangerous new world. As a result, several small coachbuilders took on the task of chopping the roofs off of regular production cars. Cars such as the Toyota Celica and Corolla, Subaru DL, Honda Prelude and CRX, and Mazda RX-7 all went topless thanks to these folks. Also among that crowd was the Datsun 200SX, seen last week in the Bonham’s at Quail auction parking lot with an unspecified price (but really, how much could it possibly be?).

1983 Datsun 200SX convertible right front

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Super-Mega Oddball Points – 1982 Mazda 626 Convertible

January 19, 2010

Well, I’m pretty much the biggest oddball car nerd I know, and yet I’ve never heard of this. And I’m sure if you asked any of my oddball car nerd friends, who are, like me, the biggest oddball car nerds they themselves know, they probably won’t have heard of or seen one of these either. That said, with Preludes, Celicas, and CRXs all being available in small batches of convertibles done by Straman or the like, I’m not too surprised this exists. Mazda 626 coupes of this series are themselves pretty rare at this point, and my only memory of them from when I was little is thinking they looked a bit like a 6-series BMW, and that the mother of one of my school friends drove one. Apparently, it performed quite well for the time, although I can’t imagine its 2-liter 4-cylinder, with a strangled 75hp, could have had too much of that zoom zoom (sorry for mentioning that) feeling.

Anyway, let’s have a look at the featured car. With only 80,000 miles and a 5-speed, it should still have a decent amount of life left in it. Being in a snow-belt state, it’s likely it was kept as a summer car – find it in Columbus, OH, apparently at a dealership, for the low, low price of $1950.

1982 Mazda 626 convertible front

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