Do a search of Bring a Trailer auction results for the Mazda Miata, and you’ll find that low-mile early-production examples are starting to slowly creep up in value. This might be the ultimate one. It’s a 1990 Miata with just 492 miles on its odometer, and it’s virtually brand new.
This car is up for sale at MBP Motorcars at Owensville, Ohio with an asking price of $24,999. That’s a lot of for a first-gen Miata, but then again, there aren’t many others in this condition. And as dealer owner Matt Post tells us, it’s got an interesting story.
The original owners of this car were a couple in Cincinnati who bought it purely as an investment. Buying a Miata as an investment piece today seems hard to imagine, but these cars were hot stuff at the time. People regularly paid over sticker for the Miata when it first hit the market, and many bought them as occasional-use toys.
While this Miata wasn’t driven much since it left Mazda’s Hiroshima factory 29 years ago, it was well maintained. Post tells me the owners had it serviced every four years at a local garage, after which point, it was put under a cover in their garage and hooked up to a battery maintainer. A lot of cars that sit for years and years are rendered undrivable as a result of neglect, but since this car was actually attended to, Post says it’s totally usable today, though he struggles to imagine anyone buying it now to put miles on it. It’ll more likely go to a collector or a museum.
The color is Classic Red and it’s a B-Package car, too, which meant it had every option, including power windows, cruise control, alloy wheels, and a leather-wrapped steering wheel. It’s a great representation of what the Miata was in 1990, though it’s not particularly rare since Classic Red was the most popular color by a significant margin.
Post told me the car comes with complete service records and all the paperwork from the original sale. There’s even a top boot in the original packaging and all the protective covering for the interior in the trunk. Post even found the promotional plate from the dealer.
We’re just amazed at how clean this car is. Seeing early Miatas with 10,000 miles or less isn’t uncommon, but under 500? That’s a different story.
Post says he’s open to offers, and he might put the car up for auction on Bring a Trailer in the near future. We’re very curious to learn what it ends up going for.
Source: Read Full Article