Bitcoin is the conceptual monetary exchange of the Internet that everybody's talking about. Likewise in the automotive world, the Miata is the financial reference point.. Today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe MX-5 is LS2 endowed, but will its price still prove too much a bit of coin?
Do you remember in the movie Fargo where (SPOILER ALERT) Jerry Lundegaard is negotiating with the couple over undercoating? Yeah, that bit of social satire was spot on as dealer options can really add up. Sadly for the seller of yesterday's one-time dealer-commissioned Cadillac Seville San Remo, its price didn't add up, ending in an overwhelming 95% Crack Pipe loss, one of our biggest ever.
Considering how yesterday went down, how's about we try an even MORE expensive custom V8 convertible today? This NA Miata is powered, not by the sweet twin-cam of its youth, but a pair of big-boy pants in the form of an LS2 V8, late of a crate.
The ad says the 425-bhp engine was one of the first to be tactically dropped into a Miata, and comes with both a T56 and a Ford 8.8 out back to handle the ponies.
This particular car is also apparently a bit of a celebrity, having appeared on the Speed Channel back when that was a thing, and GEARZ TV. The build does seem to be very clean.
Behind the music is a C-package MX-5 in Laguna Blue. Differentiating it visually from your hairdresser's MX-5 are a hefty roll bar, hood vents, trunk lid wing and black-painted alloy wheels. Only the little Chevy bow ties - while discreet - seem out of place here.
On the inside there are a pair of snug as a bug buckets each with four-point harnesses, the left one facing a set of Auto Meter gauges and a fat Momo. It all looks different enough and pretty clean.
The ad claims 12K since the LS-tuneup, and that took place in 2005 so you do the math. It's also said to be an Arizona native so rust shouldn't be a problem, and the A/C should work like a champ as who in their right mind would own a car in the Copper State without it?
The price for all this melding of horses and light weight - claimed 2,630 pounds - is $36,000 and the seller brings up an interesting point, which is that for that kind of money you could either have this beast or a shiny new four-pot Miata. I've never actually given much thought to the purchase of a new Miata, considering the wealth of used ones on the planet, but I guess somebody needs to buy them otherwise there eventually wouldn't be that wealth of used ones.
Regardless, this one costs as much as a new one, and has op-up headlights to boot. Oh, and there's that V8 engine and the less than seven pounds per pony it needs to drag around, that's got to be worth something, right?
Well, you now need to decide whether that's worth the $36,000 this professionally pumped up Miata is asking. What do you say, is that a good price for so clean a machine? Or, does that price mean this Miata eight isn't so great?
You decide!
Phoenix Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to RMadden for the hookup!
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For $36,000, Me Oughta' Have A V8