Cars

Only in…

Only in Aiken (or Lexington, KY or Ocala, FL, etc.) would they name an apartment complex Trotters Run. In a horse town, both of those words can be seen in a horsy context and not as two words that can be mistaken for a couple of euphemisms for diarrhea.

Only in South Carolina. I remember where we first moved here, I was totally perplexed by the meaning of the front novelty tags on so many cars that read “GO COCKS.” Now after 15 years I no longer think of the male member and visualize the banty rooster mascot of the University of South Carolina, a gamecock.

Ooooh, That Was Fun

Not enough to make me really want one, but I can certainly see how one could be seduced by that siren’s song.

Russ came in to my cube right after lunch and said, “Want to take it for a drive?” We headed out into the lot and after he clicked the unlock button on the key, he handed it to me. First thing that is totally weird, is the key is on the dash to the left of the steering wheel. After the car is running, to lower the top, you undo the center latch and hold down a button until the light goes out. It doesn’t take too long, but it is longer than flopping the Miata’s top. To be fair, when the process is complete, you are done, as the top becomes it’s own boot in combo with the power half-tannau cover. The clutch engages higher than I’m used to but I didn’t stall it. It is not as smooth engaging as the Miata and is a bit stiffer to boot. I just took it for a spin around the long block, all of maybe 5 miles. When you step on the gas the gets up and goes compared to the Miata. Lots of torque and when you get the revs above 5K the sound is just so sweet. Not so much the exhaust tone you get with the Miata, but with the engine right behind your seat, there is this wonderful mechanical whir all the way to redline at 6500.

It was a short drive without any real curves, but I bet it would be fun to take it through some. The shifter is longer than the Miata, but not ungainly and it felt nice and tight with a good spacing. You can’t really put your elbow on the door like in the Miata and I got the feeling you weren’t supposed to in this car, you are supposed to be driving, not cruising. The interior seemed a little fussy. Not unpleasant, but there were a lot of little buttons. Having driven a Z3, a Z4 and now a Boxster, I think the Miata has the nicest looking interior. The exterior of this car takes some getting used to, I don’t find it very attractive, but it does say Porsche. Of the BMWs and the Porsche and Miata, I think the Miata exterior looks better as well. Of course if I was a couple steps further up the corporate ladder and my salary was about 60% higher it would be hard not to go for one of the German sportscars. If I could have the Boxster sound in a Z4….

Comet Gestation Counter: 55 days

Back Home II

As promised, the lowlights:

  • Friday Morning: Spray painted graffiti on Georgia’s Stonhenge.
  • Friday Mid-day: Road construction in Clarksville, GA kicking up clouds of dust that settle on our cars as we eat lunch.
  • Friday Night: The mostly crummy meal served for dinner at The Sweet Magnolia Caf? in Robbinsville.
  • Saturday Early Morning: The continental breakfast at the Microtel.
  • Saturday Mid-Day: The freakin’ traffic in Gatlingburg, TN.
  • Saturday Afternoon: Some members of our group holding up a rice rocket longer than they needed to while transiting the Gap.
  • Saturday Night: Driving 49.7 miles on the Cherohala Skyway to dinner in Townsend, TN (although to be fair this can also be listed as a highlight.)
  • Sunday Morning: A crowded drive with straight piped Harley cruisers and old folks on the way to church through Maggie Valley on Hwy 19/74.
  • Sunday Mid-day: Meeting my sister and her husband at their Asheville hotel to find out they just got water restored after the flooding from T.S. Frances.
  • Sunday Afternoon: The drive home always seems so long…

Comet Gestation Counter: 48 days

Can You See Them Now?

Donna and I drove to the Master’s Miata Club meeting tonight, but she didn’t stay. She was on the edge about going and at the last minute decided to come. When we got to the room we would be in at the Aiken Brewery there were two people at the bar smoking. That was all it took to change her mind, she turned around and headed home leaving me to catch a ride with someone after the meeting. At first I was going to ride with Ray who lives on the southside of Aiken too, but Leroy showed up and he lives a stone’s throw (literally) from me, so I rode back with him. Leroy has a Laguna Blue 95 like I used to have. Even though they came from the factory identically built, it is amazing how differently we went when it came to customizing our cars. One thing Leroy did, that I considered early, but dismissed for cost reasons, was add some of the popular Low-Pro headlights from Brainstorm. Not only are they what I consider expensive at $349, but their has been quite a bit written about their lack of light output. Tonight on the way home I got to see their weakness’s first hand. Driving down some darker roads was an adventure, the high beams helped, but man am I ever grateful for not going that way. Sometimes substance is more important that style.

Comet Gestation Counter: 37 days

Wheels They Go ‘Round In Circles

A friend at work just bought a new Saturn Ion Quad Coupe. One with those oh so trendy small back doors that swing out backward, ala suicide doors of old. To him, the lesser of all the evils in the color choices, was white. Looking at the Saturn web site, I think I would have gone with the blue, but that is me. To me all white cars look kind of like refrigerators with wheels from some angles.

James says the only thing he really doesn’t like about the car is the wheels. And come tax refund time next year he will probably get some after market wheels. I recommended he check out TireRack.com and play around. On the site you can get a crude idea of what a set of wheels will look like on your car.


Here are the OEM wheels. They don’t look to bad here and I think they go with the car. They look good close up, but in the real 3-D world they do leave a lot to be desired.


He mentioned he would get something a little less busy, something maybe with five spokes, something like my OEM Miata wheels….


I think my wheels look good and they are easy to keep clean, but I’ve said it here before, I’d like a 15″ wheel for the lightness factor and to differentiate my car from the thousands of other stock Miatas out there.


The bolt pattern is the same on both wheels, maybe we should swap. In this rendering, just as the one above with the wheels on the Saturn, they look OK, but I’m sure they would still be ugly in real life. Swapping is one of those random weird thoughts that go through your head, but are quickly dismissed if you are a sane person. As I said Wednesday, I may be stupid, but I’m not crazy.

Comet Gestation Counter: 3 days

The Best Miata Accessory Ever

And it ain’t a front lip spoiler.It is a cockpit cover. I don’t have this particular one, but when I have to replace the current one, this will be it. This is a little fuller to cover cars with rollbars, but the added height will be better for getting over the new taller “surfboard” seats. The current one fits kind of tight and around the doors it doesn’t overlap too much. If there is a big crosswind some rain might get in there. We went out to eat at Chilis this afternoon and while there was a 30% chance of showers the skies didn’t look threatening. But it is summertime in the south and pop up thundershowers can happen at anytime, so the cockpit cover went on. Good thing too. About the time we were finishing up it started to rain. Once it starts you are better off waiting until it stops before trying to get the cover off and the roof up while the drops fall. We ducked under a shopping center overhang and decided to go shopping some in Target. While inside there, it really started to come down. It was really pouring because the sound was extremely loud. It stopped and started several times with the same intensity. Donna and I just looked at each other hoping that the cover would hold. When it finally stopped, we headed back out to the parking lot. Sure enough the inside of the car was dry. Only the tops of the seats were damp where they were in contact with the cover. This is at least the tenth time I’ve been saved from having to turn on the bilge pumps after a rainstorm by the cover. As a bonus it helps keep the interior from getting cooked in the hot afternoon sunshine.

Front Lip Spoiler III

Scotland chimed in with his pricing. About the same for the spoiler, but as expected shipping kicked him right out of the running. He wanted ?70 to ship, not the approximate $70 for our Canadian friend, with an exchange rate of 1.8$ to a ? that is a major bump. I had just one more question for Canada, how much was import duty going to be on this piece of plastic? Didn’t need a $100 surprise on top of what is already approaching a $400 spoiler. The answer is 2.5% or about $7.50. That is a figure I can live with. But can I live with that big a price? After painting we are sure to be close to $450. That is about what it would cost to get a nice set of lighter 15″ wheels.

I did a couple of quick photoshopping exercises on the images from the original Swiss website:

Front Spoiler Unpainted

Front Spoiler Painted

Doesn’t look too bad unpainted, but that is if you only look at it in this view. Taking in the whole car, that bit of black hanging off the front, I’m not to sure. On the first gen cars there was already a small section along the bottom middle of the car in black, so adding a black spoiler up front and back completed a line. No such black on the newer cars. An alternative, would be of course to get some side sills in black and to complete the look something in black on the back. Nobody makes a decent back ground-effect piece for the M2, except of course this same ATH. They make a killer back piece, unfortunately it has a couple of center cutouts that fits their dual exhaust muffler and no one else’s. By the time I’m done, I’ve have spent $2k (which is impossible unless I hit the lotto.)

To quote a friend, “I’m on the horns of the Dalai Lama.” Should I spend more than I think is same just to get the front to look like I like? Or should I go back to working on getting my wife to agree to some lowering springs?