[lupinsea]

The hard fact is that we have a pretty firm price point. . . .

We're aiming for ~$12k-ish TTL out the door. . . We might bump up a bit if we find THE car but we're not doing $14-15K+ cars. This means a sale price in the $11-11.5k range, even then a $12k would take another $1k for TTL approximately which is pushing our comfort level. The other thing is that we could do ~$12k cash (which I'm really looking forward to) and not impact any other financial goals (savings, investing, home improvement, family vacation, etc. etc. etc.) or incur any car payments.

My wife and I had been talking about buying our next car for cash and break out of the car payment loop. So I'm really excited to be able to do this with the Miata. With no payments we can start saving up for my wife's next car. But that's a side note. . .

The big idea is to slide from the BMW to the Miata with none-to-minimal extra cost.

Thus: given a $11-12k budget what can I get?

The '09's are going $17.6k - $19.2k according to Edmund's TMV for private party and dealer pricing respectively.

So, those are too expensive. And if I'm going to get an NC1 then . . . why not get the cheapest NC1 I can (with the goodies I want) which would be a high(er) milage '06.

So I'm looking for:

2006 MX-5 in Sport or GT trim (they come standard with the 6 spd and 17" wheels)
~60k milage to keep the price down
- preference for the GT to get the canvas roof, but not critical
- preference for the LSD, which I think is doable in our price range

That's it, I don't care about anything else. Don't care about the Premium packages. Don't care about leather seats or Bose stereo, or the Advanced Keyless Entry system, or the HID Xenon headlights, or anything else.

Besides, you are right, the big shift is the NB vs. NC. Not the NC1 vs NC2. There are some very nice differences between the two iterations of the NC but they aren't worth the $5k+ price difference between an '06 and and '09.

And the big deal that irks everyone with the NC1 is the suspension is too soft . . . which is annoying but "fixable" for much less than the price difference between NC1 and NC2. So $1k worth of springs, shocks, and sways and the Miata enthusiasts are happy. Heck, people report that installing a set of RX-8 swaybars is a huge bang-for-the-buck improvement. Especially at $100 for a set of used swaybars. The springs and shocks are still soft but the car is flatter in the turns and the transitional response is greatly improved. I'm not going to be tracking or autocrossing so I'm looking for a very nicely balanced street setup with minimal investment. I figure I'll to the swaybars, which are cheap, and then fab up my own chassis bracing based off of existing designs. I'll have to do it out of steel but it'll probably add less than 15-20 lb. and cost ~$20. Much cheaper than the $500+ bracing sets and again, the bracing is said to help the car big time.

Once the NC2's drop in price more due to depreciation they'll be the one to get. But right now, for me it's the NC1.

As we were trying to sell the BMW I was poking around at what Miata prices were and most of the NCs looked like they were going for the $14-15k range asking price. Given that I was concerned the BMW would sell for $9-10k I pretty much wrote off the NCs and started looking at low milage NBs, which is what I used to have.

But then the BMW sold for $11k and I started noticing some dealer asking prices on the NC1 in the $12.9-$13.9k range. If that's asking, sale prices will be less and private party should be less, yet. So the NC suddenly became viable and I've become maddeningly fixated on them since. It's stupid and ridiculous but these cars just speak to me.

Just gotta be patient, which will be the hard part. This will be happening in the next few months.