Moss Motors

Last September I wrote about a new “magazine” for Miata enthusiasts from Moss Motors. It was called Miata Motoring and it was full of articles plus an equal quantity of pages of Miata parts you could buy from Moss. It had an Issue 1, 2022 tag right there on the cover, but there wasn’t any statement as to how many issues there were going to publish each year though.

It has been about a half a year and I haven’t gotten another one, so I assumed they just gave up. I figured with the four or five catalogs a year from them, they probably didn’t have the time for a magazine too. Wrong. The other day while working on the previous post, a twenty-five year old article from Miata Club of America’s magazine, what should get pushed through the mail slot but Issue 1, 2023 of Miata Motoring.

In that twenty-five year old article from Miata Club of America’s magazine there was a four page spread about the lead designer of the original Miata, Tom Matano. I opted not to reprint that particular article, so what did I find in this latest edition of Miata Motoring? Right! Another similar article about Mr. Matano.

This article just two pages long and was a sort of abridged version of Miata Club’s one. It even had a couple of the same photos used in that other one. There was one big difference between the two stories though, the older one had a photo of Tom as a child in a metal pedal car and in this one there is one of him at roughly the same age on a tricycle.

If you are in any way curious about the Miata Motoring magazine mentioned here, you can get the previous issue in PDF form by clicking here.

The Old: When we bought our first Miata back in 1989, I was automatically sent a copy of something called Miata Magazine that was the main benefit of the Miata Club of America. If I joined the Club, I would start getting the magazine quarterly, so I did. As the Club grew, so too did the magazine frequency, from 4 times a year to five to finally six until it came to an end with the 2003-III Sep/Oct issue.

I had the entire collection, but started to toss them out one at a time in late 2014. I was doing something on the Masters Miata Club website that on the 25th anniversary of an issue I would pick an article or column and republish it. Once finished with that magazine it went into the recycle bin. When I left the Masters Miata Club, they folded the website and I continued that twenty-five year schedule here on this site. Luckily I had a backup of that website, so while bored during the height of COVI-19 pandemic I recreated the first 5 years of those early articles. You can read these “highlights” of the roughly first half of the Miata Club of America magazines here.

The New: The other week on Instagram someone I follow posted a picture of something called Miata Motoring, Issue 1, 2022. He mentioned that it was published by Moss Motors, so I went over to their website to see about subscribing. Nothing. I have a kind of Love/Hate relationship with Moss, so I let it drop and moved on. Well, what should show up through the mail slot Monday but said Miata Motoring magazine.

And this is not fully a magazine per se, there are articles on the first few pages and more on the last few pages, but the middle is full of a Miata parts catalog. To be fair, if we compare the amount of advertising to content in the new one, it is probably similar in percentage in the old Club magazine. Moss knows where I live, because I have bought stuff from them before (with limited success), so that is how I received this publication and probably will for the future.

To go along with the old is new theme, all four generations of the Miata make an appearance inside this new Miata magazine. Also, for old, there is an article on the development of the original Miata by one of the engineers who was there in the beginning and who was also one of the founders of the Miata Club of America with that first magazine. And for new, we get an article about one half of my favorite YouTube car reviewing duos who has a 4th generation Miata, James Engelsman of Throttle House.