Quote Originally Posted by Doppelgänger View Post
Well thank you very much Sir for the kind words. Like you've said, it's a driver's car and I have taken advantage to enjoy the car as much as possible. There are very few Miatas worth turning into garage queens- one like the test color cars that were releaed in 1990 where each one was a custom color that Mazda thought about producing but never did. They are one-off and documented cars. Other than those, unless someone has a particularly low VIN of any of the Special Edition cars with lo miles, they're all just Miatas in the end. Mazda never really had anything too special with the Miatas though.

I guess the only "dispute" I could have with your appraisal would be about the seats. Here is my insight as to why I chose the path I did. Since they are OEM seats from a 1999 Miata Anniversary Edition, which are fairly sought out by Miata enthusiasts because of their color and interior, they would be fairly easy to attain and be recognized by and Miata enthuziast. I've heard of people loving and hating both interiors- the AE interior and the 02SE Saddle interior. Personally, I hate leather seats and wasn't the biggest fan of the brown, but I did not want to mess with aftermarket seats because very few of them fit properly and look right in the car. About the nicest non-Miata seat I've seen used in Miatas are from the Elise, but those are kind of expensive and require custom seat brackets. So I thought the AE blue/black seats would be a nice compromise and not clash with the exterior color of the car too much...and I could kinda color match other bits to them for a fairly OEM look. There were also solid blue cloth seats on the 2003 Shinsen (oddly enough, it is also Titanium Metallic), but I feel it would have been just a bit too much blue, thought I've thought about seeing out a pair and trying them out. The 2003 Shinsen Edition had the blue door panel inserts that I ended up using.

Stock 02SE interior-




1999 Anniversary Interior



2003 Shinsen interior

Interior 2003 Shinsen Miata by LostBob Photos, on Flickr

And mine when not trying to look all artsy lol



In the end, I wanted to use OEM parts that I thought would blend well together. As for the valvecover- yeah, it doesn't quite "match"...but that was the point...it's where the car gets to show its party side lol. But it's something that is small and easy to change if need be. I didn't want to be traditional with it and go with polished or black wrinkle. It's like the woman in the serious business suit who bends over and you catch a peek of a bight blue thong hahaha.
That does change my perspective on the seats. With the blue, it wasnt me saying i didnt like them, saying someone might not like them. Trying to value this car based on the best potential buyer, someone with big money to spend and high end tastes. An "off" color would annoy that type of buyer. I was unaware that blue/silver was a factory matched combo, but that completely deletes my criticism since it is.