A Miata of My Own

Not the fastest car in the room

I first came across the Mazda MX-5 a couple of years ago, in its original NA shape, all round headlights and soft edges, and I remember thinking it was a genuinely cute, interesting little thing. Nothing more than that at the time. Then I spent a while in Munich, on Erasmus, surrounded by cars I had only ever seen in pictures: Porsches, Lamborghinis, the sort of BMWs you hear before you see them. And somewhere in all that metal, something in me quietly shifted, though not in the direction you might expect.

Instead of wanting more, faster, louder, I found myself wanting less. When I came home I started swapping some of my things for simpler, more analogue ones: a physical notebook and a Lamy Safari fountain pen instead of another app, a Timex Expedition Solar on my wrist instead of a screen. And the car I kept coming back to, after all those supercars, was the smallest and most honest one of the lot.

Why this one

I had wanted a car of my own for a long time, and at first I told myself to be sensible about it. I looked at the more practical options, something with proper space and a usable boot, the kind of car you are supposed to buy. But the more honest I was, the less that held up. I would be the one driving it, nearly always on my own, and I almost never carry anything bigger than a bag. Once I admitted that, practicality dropped to the second tier, and what I actually wanted moved up to the first.

And what I wanted was a Miata. Once the idea took hold it was hard to shake. It is not fast, not flashy, not the sort of thing that turns heads at a junction. It is light, simple, and built around a single idea: the driver and the road, with as little as possible in between. That was exactly what I was after.

So I started scrolling the second-hand listings, not really expecting much, and then this one appeared: an ND in good condition, a fair price, freshly wearing its original Soul Red. I looked at it for a while, thought why not, and that was that.

What it’s like to drive

The best way I can put it is that the car talks to you. You feel the road through the wheel, through the seat, through the pedals, every small thing the tyres are doing reported straight back to your hands and feet. There is nothing numb about it. My favourite way to drive is with the roof down and some music on, the wind coming in, the whole thing feeling less like operating a machine and more like moving with one.

It was never about going slowly. It was about being there for the drive.

For me it was never really about speed. I keep coming back to the idea of slow, unhurried kilometres, but I do not mean crawling along. I mean not being in a rush to be anywhere else, letting the drive itself be the point: just me, the car, and a quiet, open road.

The drive home

If I had to keep one moment out of all of it, it would be the drive home on the day I bought it. The way back was a good mix, long stretches of motorway with the views opening up on either side, and then quieter roads with a bit of a bend to them, all of it under a slow sunset. It was the first time the car was properly mine, the first time it was just the two of us, and it already felt like the start of a long and unhurried friendship.