The MX-5 Miata of the Month

April 1998

Gary Fischman
Old Tappan, NJ

Yeah, we know what you're thinking:

How could you select your own Miatas for April's Miata of the Month? Isn't that a conflict of interest? Isn't there some sort of law against that? You know, employees and their families are disqualified? Or is it an April Fool's joke?

Maybe we wanted to have the first '99 to become Miata of the Month and nobody else submitted one. Maybe we wanted to do the first Miata of the Month siblings. Maybe we wanted to do the oldest (171,000 miles) and newest (23 miles) Miata of the Month submitted so far. Or maybe we just wanted to flex our Webmaster Muscle and take the opportunity to blow our own horn for once!

How about all of the above?!?

We have the same story as everyone else: I-fell-in-love-with-the-Miata-the-minute-I-first-saw-an-ad-and-I-had-to-have-one! This was back in '90. Back in the days when we were stopped at traffic lights by other driver's who just had to make a comment on that great little car. Back in the days when schoolchildren squealed "Cool car!". So it was pretty surprising a few nights ago when I dropped my niece off at middle-school and her 14-year-old friends sitting on the school steps all jumped off, gathered around my '90, and started muttering unintelligible words like "phat ride, dude!" After my niece translated, I was thrilled that the old '90 with 171,000 miles could still turn kids on!

The Name Game

Anyone who is at all familiar with the Miata world knows about people's penchant for naming their car. Personally, I always thought it was silly. I always called my '90 "Nameless and Genderless". But on my way home from work just before picking up the new one, it suddenly hit me. The '90's name is "Max". As in Maxwell Smart. 86. (You see where we're going with this?) I, of course, am the Chief.

The Chief and Larabee take Max to rescue '99, who is being held hostage for a hefty ransom at  K.A.O.S. headquarters.

After suffering for weeks, not knowing the whereabouts of '99, we received a call at Control telling us that '99 was in the hands of the Longshoremen. They muttered something about boats, but we suspect that's a code name for K.A.O.S. operatives. They demanded a large ransom to release '99, and after some negotiating about whether she still had all her facilities, we agreed to pay it so she wouldn't be held any longer than necessary.

The Chief and Larabee arrived at K.A.O.S. HQ at the agreed upon time. Hymie was waiting for us, though he was disguised as the General Manager of Ramsey Mazda named Patrick Genova. But we knew it was really Hymie.

We agreed to turn over the ransom to release '99. They tried to trick us by telling us that '99 was "waiting in the bay." But we're too smart for that - we know there's no Bay in Northern New Jersey. But after hearing the screams of '99, we quickly headed into the back of K.A.O.S. to a room that appeared to be an area where they performed surgery or something. This must be where all those disguises are done. We then  spotted '99 in the back of the room, where she was sitting topless, but otherwise unharmed. Quickly, we pulled out a few of '99's personal effects. We wanted to make her feel comfortable immediately. The first thing was to exorcise the curse K.A.O.S. put on her by installing a Voodoo Knob. We couldn't let her leave without Voodoo, could we?

The next thing was to restore her identity. The agents at K.A.O.S. tried to confuse her by changing her identification. We quickly rectified that and gave her the proper identification tags.

The final step was to make the getaway. Larabee quickly grabbed Max while the Chief jumped '99. (And you thought this was a family site?)  Hymie tried to stop us, pretending to shake our hands, but really trying to impart a death grip to convince us to take a few more hostages. But undeterred, we headed for the door to make our getaway into the warm, 80 degree, March 31, 1998 night air.

Yes, you read this right, the rescue was only last night, so '99 hasn't even had a chance to get familiar with her surroundings.   But we expect the recuperation to be quick and '99 along with Max will continue to serve The Chief and Larabee for many years to come!

Dedicated to my wonderful wife, Michele (AKA Larabee).
Without her love and support, Miata.net would not exist.

Previous Miata of the Month Winners

Will you be next?