I realize we have moved on from the MX-5 (Miata) conversation is that most performance cars will leave them in the dust. I'm totally fine with that. Straight out speed and power wins.

The reason the MX-5 is still appealing is the driving experience. You can wring it out, and have a blast. You can smile as you rip through corners. You get tons of feedback as you are getting to the edge where it is going to step out of line.

It won't impress your neighbors, but personally, I don't give a crap about what my neighbors thing of my car. All I care about is what it feels like to the driver.

I would have recommended a Mini in the past, because the drive was a blast. However it had a bad habit of peeing on my garage floor, and it felt like you would tear through the bushings in a couple of months after cornering with too much enthusiasm. It ended up being too much of a bother to maintain. And fun cars are supposed to be fun, not a bother.

My favorite Mini story from mine was needing to replace the gas tank. It took almost a month at the dealership, and when I got it back, the car had a massive dent in the right side of the car. Yay.

Yes, it was all under warranty. Yes, they fixed the dent too. But over the life of the car it had an overnight stay at the dealership for every thousand miles. It was a fun car, but an absolute headache. It was my “fun second car”, but I ended up hating it. I’d be surprised if there was a gasket in the engine I didn’t have to have replaced. Every time I pulled it out of the garage I’d check for new leaks, and then I’d have to find where it was coming from.

Damn fun car to drive when it worked, but the overhead made it much less fun. I’ll admit to driving it hard, because cars like that are made to have some fun without getting too crazy. So I don’t include the costs of stuff like tires or brakes, and really I shouldn’t include the bushings. Those are the costs of hard corners. But gas tanks? Valves? Decarbonization? Gaskets? Those all come down to bad design and construction.