This is our 2001 Miata SE. I couldn't say no.

She had a little over 18k miles on the clock and nearly worn out stock tires when I found her in 2004. The search began after I drove a used, high mileage 1999 that had significant hail damage. I thought that if I could get the car for under 5k , repairing the body work would be worth it, but the dealer was unwilling to budge on the inflated pre-hail price. A little research on the web and, I decided that I needed British Racing green and the Nardi goodies in the cockpit.  There was a Mazda dealer about 5 minutes out of the way so on my commute home so on a rainy day, I pulled into the lot in my 2000 Grand Cherokee Limited and the first car I saw was this one. I drove home in # 1940. She suffered a bit from a grabby clutch, but another dealer quickly sorted that out under warranty. 

The Bose factory deck came out in favor of a JVC KD-AR5000 touch screen unit. I wanted something that didn't have all of the boy racer flash, played MP3 and didn't look out of place in the dash. One of these days I will have to upgrade to the Clearwater speakers.

And it had to match the factory backlighting at night

Then, off came the factory tires and on went an oversize set of BF Goodrich Traction T/A's (215/15 R16). I was after more of a sport touring tire vs all out performance. I have been accused of making it look like an SUV, but it suits my purposes and that is the whole point, is it not?  I also installed a dual Borla sport system.  

We took a road trip in late November, Denver to Salt Lake City to Reno to San Francisco to Hemet,CA (to spend Thanksgiving with family and following Highway 1 as far as possible)to Prescott,AZ and finally back to Denver via 40-I25. We ran into heavy snow on day 1, I80 to Salt Lake City and again on the last day coming back from Prescott. It was snowing so badly, I was supprised that I-25 was open. Between the tires and outstanding balance of the car, we never experienced any difficulty in the slick ore slushy stuff. The fine finish took a bit of a beating from the gravel thrown up by trucks. Hey, I bought this car to drive, not to look at.

Poor dirty baby.

At the Bonneville salt flats.

Along Highway 1.

The custom tags showed up just after the trip.