Meet Lucy

Lucy is a 1994 Mazda Miata that was purchased for a song. She had old bent steel wheels wrapped with crusty, cracking street tires at least 10 years old. Her top had holes in it obviously made by burrowing groundhogs looking for a place to sleep. The paint was faded, pink-in-places, oxidized and basically pretty darn ugly. The drivers door had a big 'ol dent and the passenger rear quarter had a smaller dent, with more personality. At most we figured we'd have a cheap entry into the coming weekend's rallycross in the Junk Yard Dog class!

So that weekend we took her rallycrossing out in the dirt. She finished 6th out of 46 including some prepared Subaru WRXs, and other respectable cars
https://axwaresystems.com/axorm/files/SPOKES/2007e2-rx1_raw.htm
The end result of this event was (4) blown out shocks and some tired springs. (and a few more bent rims)

Then I drove her home.

There was something about her that made me put some effort and love into that I discovered on that drive home. She only had 100k on the clock, the engine didn't have clicking hydraulic lifters, the interior was in almost perfect condition and the most important item.....the a/c blew cold.

Since then, she's become my daily driver and one of the best Miatas I've ever owned (i've owned 7).

So what have we done so far?

1. replaced the stock 14" steel wheels with a set of 15x7 Chaparral silver aluminum Panasport-lookalikes with some Toyo Proxes T1-Rs.
2. replaced the top with a Robbins budget top with new window.
3. dumped the stock shocks/springs with a set of KYB GR2s wrapped with the old school FM springs and rear FM mounts.
4. had the car buffed and detailed at First Hand Carwash to see which panels would need new paint.
5. installed a JVC basic CD player with a front aux input for my iPod and some used doorspeakers.
6. replaced the original steering wheel with another OEM steering wheel without a torn up leather wrap.
7. Replacement door from a wrecked '96.
8. Noodle (slips between the plastic window when the top is down).
9. Paintwork to the front bumper, two mirrors and drivers door.


There's really no goal here. We talked about making it into the world's least expensive STS2 setup, but realistically, this is my daily driver. Much more fun to drive than my Tundra.

Her name is Lucy.
(Lucy is named after Katie Kelly's black 94R, one of the first ladies' who jumped into the Open Class competition in the "then-BS" Miata in the late 90s and also known as the evil genius mind behind the Great Shock Absorber Perch Setting Controversy of ‘99)

12/2/07 Update
Lucy now has a little turbo kit on her. It's little and it'll stay that way. We had our fun with Sim and that was a tough job. We won't get that deep again until we get an NC. Until then a little boosted Lucy will be just fine. We also added some graphics. After polishing her and polishing her and polishing her so much to try and get out some bird turd stains that just wouldn't go away, we decided to put vinyl over it and make her a little more sporty! It completes the turbo part, too :)

10/10/08 OK, the turbo was fun and all, but we came across a great idea.....why not throw a V8 LS1 (think Corvette) engine into the bay? We're documenting that below in our LSx Project. (we no longer believe this is the least expensive STS2 project, but potentially a "cheap" XP project!)