Year: 2022

Everything Old Is New Again

The Old: When we bought our first Miata back in 1989, I was automatically sent a copy of something called Miata Magazine that was the main benefit of the Miata Club of America. If I joined the Club, I would start getting the magazine quarterly, so I did. As the Club grew, so too did the magazine frequency, from 4 times a year to five to finally six until it came to an end with the 2003-III Sep/Oct issue.

I had the entire collection, but started to toss them out one at a time in late 2014. I was doing something on the Masters Miata Club website that on the 25th anniversary of an issue I would pick an article or column and republish it. Once finished with that magazine it went into the recycle bin. When I left the Masters Miata Club, they folded the website and I continued that twenty-five year schedule here on this site. Luckily I had a backup of that website, so while bored during the height of COVI-19 pandemic I recreated the first 5 years of those early articles. You can read these “highlights” of the roughly first half of the Miata Club of America magazines here.

The New: The other week on Instagram someone I follow posted a picture of something called Miata Motoring, Issue 1, 2022. He mentioned that it was published by Moss Motors, so I went over to their website to see about subscribing. Nothing. I have a kind of Love/Hate relationship with Moss, so I let it drop and moved on. Well, what should show up through the mail slot Monday but said Miata Motoring magazine.

And this is not fully a magazine per se, there are articles on the first few pages and more on the last few pages, but the middle is full of a Miata parts catalog. To be fair, if we compare the amount of advertising to content in the new one, it is probably similar in percentage in the old Club magazine. Moss knows where I live, because I have bought stuff from them before (with limited success), so that is how I received this publication and probably will for the future.

To go along with the old is new theme, all four generations of the Miata make an appearance inside this new Miata magazine. Also, for old, there is an article on the development of the original Miata by one of the engineers who was there in the beginning and who was also one of the founders of the Miata Club of America with that first magazine. And for new, we get an article about one half of my favorite YouTube car reviewing duos who has a 4th generation Miata, James Engelsman of Throttle House.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Donna’s Birthday Eve Edition of SORT
As of Monday, August 29, 2022 at 6:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1950 Allard J2 1976 Mercedes-Benz Unimog 1962 Lincoln Continental
Leather helmet? Check. Goggles? Check. Silk Scarf? Check. Okay, start ‘er up. Roads? We don’t need no stinkin’ roads, this thing makes its own roads. If you can’t be comfortable touring in this thing, you need a better chiropractor.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 1997 Panoz AIV Roadster Sold for $51,000 on 8/24/22
Off-Road: 1959 Willys Jeep FC-170 Bid to $30,000 on 8/26/22
Touring: 1970 Cadillac Eldorado Sold for $11,000 on 8/24/22

Third Times The Charm

We have been ordering Donna Celestial Seasonings DECAF Green Tea K-Cups from Amazon since before we moved to Oregon in 2019. There have been several different K-cup quantities over that period, but sometime late last year or early this year we started buying them in 96 count boxes. A few of months ago we couldn’t get the big boxes anymore so we found a seller that was selling the same thing, but they were listing it as 4 boxes of 24. This worked out well until early this month we repeated the usual order and when it was delivered it was a single box of 24…

We contacted the seller and they told us they even though they were the seller, the order was fulfilled by Amazon and we needed to contact them. Well, as you might expect, with Amazon there is no way to contact a real person by phone. Returns are dead easy, but because the tea is food item, returns were not allowed. After fumbling around their help center, I finally found a bot thingy and it took a couple of wrong selections before I did find a way to get it to refund our money or more accurately, added the total purchase price to a virtual gift card and we even got to keep the single 24 count box.

After the money showed up as a gift card in the Amazon account we reordered the 4 boxes of 24. It wasn’t two day delivery, but it was still free, so a few days later the order arrived. As you could tell from the title of this post, this second order once again contained just one box of 24 K-cups where we ordered and paid for ninety-six. This time when I found the bot there was no option that I could find to pick that would give us the purchase price and keep the money. I did find a way to have it put me in a queue to chat with an actual human. After a few minutes I was connected and after repeating my problem in a couple different ways, I got the same results as the first time, keep the 24 and the full purchase price in a gift card. Plus a guarantee that it wouldn’t happen again.

This time, thinking that the problem was the Amazon fulfilling part, we opted for a seller said that it was fulfilled by them not Amazon. We waited with baited breath to see whether we would get 1 or 4 boxes of 24, but when the packed showed up on our doorstep several days there was a large box that contained 4 boxes of 24 K-cups.

Was it the different seller or that guarantee from a chat bot? I don’t know, but we’ll see in a couple months when we order tea again from Amazon.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

And Now For Something Completely Different Edition of SORT
As of Monday, August 22, 2022 at 6:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1997 Panoz AIV Roadster 1959 Willys Jeep FC-170 1970 Cadillac Eldorado
I had several of the usual suspects lined up for these categories this week, but hesitated. Instead, I decided to go ahead and pick 3 cars that I have never picked off BAT before.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 2006 Lotus Elise Sold for $48,500 on 8/17/22
Off-Road: 1966 Ford Bronco Sold for $78,000 on 8/21/22
Touring: 2001 BMW 525i Wagon Sold for $13,250 on 8/17/22

I’ve Fallen Down A Hole In The Internet

I normally check in everyday on Jalopnik to get a dose of automotive content and Tuesday last week I got sucked into a huge time “waster.” One of the posts referenced a fellow in California that is engine swapping a Honda K24 motor into a 1979 Ferrari 308GTBi. Not just any old Honda 4-cylinder engine either, the plan is to add a big ol’ turbo and get 1,000 horse power.

The first thing he did to anger the Ferrari enthusiasts was of course removing the Ferrari V-8. He is weighing almost everything he has removed from the car and the 800lb V-8 is about five hundred pounds heavier than the I-4 Honda motor.

The second thing he did was to order a Liberty Walk body kit for it. He plans on using this for a Time Attack car, so the kit allows him to run a lot wider tire. Plus he will be streeting it as well so, I’m with him, I think the kit will look cool and it will differentiate the car from the rest of the Southern California Ferraris he might encounter.

There are 107 videos in the YouTube Playlist. And because I’m kind of a numbers geek I added the times for all one hundred and seven videos and so far there is 25 hours & 51 minutes of which I have watched 20 hours and 39 minutes worth. The shortest episode is the very first one at 5 minutes and 54 seconds and the longest is #3 at one second over twenty-seven minutes. The average episode length is a palatable fifteen and a half minutes. I just finished number eighty-five which means in the last nine days I have watched 20 hours and 39 minutes. That is about 2-1/2 hours or around 9 episodes a day.

I have a little over 5 hours left to watch and I’ll be done, but Mike Burroughs, founder of StanceWorks is not. He started working on this project in December of 2020 with the original goal of finishing it up in time for SEMA in November of 2021, but SEMA was cancelled and pandemic supply chain issues have held him up. This is apparently the third thing he did to generate some anger, not necessarily Ferrari owners, but more like the people following the build, he is taking too long for finish. Whatever. I have subscribed to the channel, so after I finish the 107 current episodes I’ll still watch the rest of them as he finishes them.

Lack of Attention to Detail

About a month ago we were in Walmart, shopping for some groceries that we like, but Fred Meyers stopped carrying them or never did. When we got back to the car to put our purchases in the trunk an employee out gathering carts stopped and said, “You know you have your tires on the wrong side of the car?”

I looked down at the rears tire I was closest to, sure enough the tread pattern was facing the wrong way. Doh! “Wow, I must have messed up when I swapped the summer tires for the winter all-seasons back in March”, I told him. The fellow said he noticed because he also has a Miata, a ’90, and has run these tires on his car in the past.

I thanked him and the next day I swapped the tires to their correct sides. This was not a real big deal because the tread pattern is that way to improve wet traction by channeling water from out from under the tire and I don’t think the Miata has been in the rain since we have lived in Oregon. Well maybe I had the wipers on intermittent once last year…

Today was another one of those Walmart runs and when we pulled into the lot I noticed a white early model Miata, so I parked next to it figuring it might be that guy’s car. When we here last time and I asked him where his car was he had pointed over in the side of the lot. When I got out and looked at it I noticed he had a “Share the Road” license plate too.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

The Ides of August Edition of SORT
As of Monday, August 15, 2022 at 6:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2006 Lotus Elise 1966 Ford Bronco 2001 BMW 525i Wagon
This is a hardcore sports car in spite of the creature comforts of A/C, Alpine stereo and noise-insulated black soft top. This is a hardcore off-roader in spite of the creature comforts of A/C, an audio system and black hard top. This tourer is the antithesis of the previous 2 vehicles. It is smooth, comfy with lots of room for your luggage and any souvenirs you buy.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 2000 Honda S2000 Sold for $35,500 on 8/10/22
Off-Road: 2003 Land Rover Discovery II HSE Sold for $15,000 on 8/11/22
Touring: 1977 Honda Accord Sold for $12,250 on 8/10/22