In the spring of 2014, my MX-5 guru friend James had fitted a ‘new’ (less than 50,000 miles) replacement engine to my beloved fifth MX-5, Maggy.

Maggy was back!

I was driving with a smile again.

There’s just something about the simple pleasure of driving an Mark 1 1990’s MX-5. The Japanese designed it with ‘Jinba ittai‘ in mind,
meaning ‘Horse and rider as one‘. And it’s worked – it feels like an extension of your body. There’s a great book about the MX-5’s story available at Amazon: Mazda MX-5: The Complete Story.

People often joke that it’s a bit of a hairdressers car. Most of those haven’t driven one. Or are wannabe hairdressers.

Yes, the original 114bhp 1.6 litre engine isn’t exactly powerful, but it’s enough to feel nippy in that light and brilliant chassis. And my 150+bhp BBR turbo has the perfect amount of power to turn that grin into an insane cackling.

I was happy.

But I still had to get rid of the damn beamer, and the RX-7 was still being rebuilt.

I’d disliked the BMW 3 series convertible almost immediately after buying her; although it was bloody powerful, it was heavy, and
I didn’t like the way it handled. It was also a bit too ‘flash’ for me – I’d happily drive a supercar, but only a 20 year old slightly battered looking one!

I’d tried to sell it back to the dealers, but summer had been ending and there was low demand for convertibles, so when they finally got back to me with a price, I hadn’t been sure whether to laugh or cry.

Needless to say, I’d kept her.

It was now spring of the following year and the perfect time to market a convertible. Up she went on Autotrader. 2 hours later, I kid you not, Sytner BMW ring me.

The same Sytner BMW Nottingham that I bought it from, who had previously offered me a pathetically small amount to buy it back.

Not so now. The model was in demand, and they were short on stock.

I still had the boot leak problem. Surely they knew about that?

I neglected to remind them.

They bought it back at a very reasonable price. I checked their site a few weeks later and saw that they were trying to sell it for £3000 more than they’d gave me, about £1500 more than I’d bought it for the previous year!

So, stock take.

• Maggy, the MX-5 BBR turbo, love of my life, all fixed, running beautifully – very happy.
• Dull & Unreliable BMW – SOLD.
• “The Mistake I Had To Make” RX-7 – being rebuilt.

So I needed a car with rear seats. I could use the girlfriends Lexus RX300 from time to time, but I’d already made my mind up to sell the RX-7 once I’d got it back from being rebuilt – I just couldn’t trust it anymore and for some reason, even though it was Maggy’s big sister, she’d never made me smile in the same way – so I needed a suitable replacement car.

I bought a Volkswagen Scirocco 2.0 litre turbo petrol with 200bhp on tap.

Surely this was a sensible choice?

• Hatchback: check
• Fuel economy: estimated 36-40mpg; better than the Alfa Romeo Brera I’d had
• Back seats: small, but suitable for children
• Reliability: basically a VW Golf, so excellent
• Looks: Almost as beautiful as the Brera
• Fun: More fun to drive than the Brera

I’d only got rid of the Alfa Romeo Brera due to the disappointing and almost dangerous turbo lag, and it’s poor fuel consumption. The Scirocco (AKA ‘Siri‘) was a very similar beast, yet with similar if not better fuel economy, a nippy responsive petrol engine, and an apparently better ride.

Had I finally got it right??

Next part of the story: Old before my time