The End of an Era
This photo is from 2 days ago as I watched the new owner drive off.
For the first time in just shy of 34 years (or a little over a billion seconds) I don’t own a Miata. We just didn’t drive it much and if it got driven once a week it was lucky. Usually when it did go for a drive, it was short hops to pick up a pizza or a run to the cannabis store. We did take it a couple of times to get breakfast or a coffee at our favorite spot this summer.
We have probably been in Brevada over a thousand times in the four years we’ve lived here and are known by the owners and staff. It is not exactly like Cheers, where everyone in the place shouts our names when we come in, but close. Most of folks there do know what our usual order is and will start making our drinks while we are waiting in line to pay.
About a week ago one of the owners, David, was manning the register. He asked me, “How do you like your Miata?” I of course replied, “Love it.” “I’ve always wanted one”, said David. So I said, “Do you want to buy mine?” He responded with how much do you want for it and I threw out a figure that was a few hundred more than what I paid for it. “How many miles does it have on it?”, he asked. I told him it was 2002 with just over 83K. David said he’d have to drive it, but he’d have to run it by his CFO (his wife). I told him I’d drive it up on Monday, when we came in for breakfast.
Monday we went to Brevada for breakfast in the Miata. After eating, David broke away during a lull in customers and we went for a 15 minute drive. He had driven a Miata before, he and his wife had rented one on their honeymoon and both enjoyed the experience. The rental was of course a new fourth generation Miata. Mazda has steadily improved the car over the generations, without changing the essence of the car. David said that the second gen Miata, like the CTBNL, was his favorite looking one. He was smitten. Now if we can pass the wife test.
He mentioned that his wife’s car needed to go over the mountain to Medford tomorrow for some service and would I let him take the Miata and follow her over. Then they’d drive back to Klamath Falls together so he could get her to like it enough to let them buy it. Later in the day David texted me to say the wife’s car didn’t need to go over to Medford, but could he borrow the car to go on a dinner date with her. When they picked up the Miata that afternoon David asked politely could they take it the Lake of the Woods. Now, Lake of the Woods is halfway between here and Medford, so I didn’t have any problem. After all, I was willing to to let them take the car for 140 miles, so 70 was fine.
When they returned the CTBNL a few hours later, David’s “evil” plan worked to perfection. They wanted to buy it. Seeing how much they both enjoyed the car Donna said we would sell it to them a bit cheaper than my off the cuff price from before. So I sold it to them for a few hundred less that what we bought it for 7 years and 40,000 miles ago. Win, win for all concerned. David came over the next day with a check and we signed the title. I showed him how to use the cockpit cover, loaded up the trunk with a box of spare Miata parts, tossed in a couple of Miata coffee table books I had and, well the picture above tells the story.
