By Allan Elegeert
allan@miata.net
How many of you actually recall the first time you set eyes on a Miata, the first time you ever saw the image of one, the first time you drove one....the first time you knew... 'I want this' ?? Today I was reunited with this very moment for the first time in 8 years...
Back in 1989, my college days, my uncle gave me a subscription to TIME magazine, as he thought it would broaden my horizons beyond beer,freshmen-girls,rock music and the Lake Poets....well it sure did.I remember thumbing through a particular 1989 issue and having a true vision, there it was in glorious technicolour (Red..of course) a little two seater sportscar...it was made by Mazda and it was called the Miata...It was truly love at first site.
Now I have to tell you that at that point I knew nothing about cars, and I mean nothing ! I was 20 years and and had NEVER even driven a car, I didn't have a driver's license,I didn't even have a friend who had a car..my dad drove a car which was German, I believe it was called a BMW...anyway you get the drift.
I read the article over and over again,saw that the base price would be 15.000 USD (ohmygosh that's cheap), it was very reliable compared to the old British two-seaters and that it would be next to impossible to get one the following 6 months without paying top dollar. But mostly I just looked at the picture..
I started taking this magazine with me and showed it to friends, they didn't care,none of us drove remember...
I took it home and showed it to my parents...they just laughed when I said that one day I would be driving one of these...yeah why not a Porsche my dad mockingly said...and so it went...
Only my grandmother showed any signs of interest in this new obsession....she drove me to the Mazda dealership a few months later, where they had NO Miata, NO poster and NO brochure....
Anyway my grandfather bought a new car and donated his 12 years old Toyota Tercell to me...I had to get a driver's license now...Took some of my savings out and started cramming (average amount spent on obtaining dl in Belgium is between 500 and 700 USD).Anyway I got it, registered the Toyota and became a driver,I was now 21 :). Over the years other priorities came up (graduating, girlfriends, moving etc...) but I regulary picked up that dog ear-ed copy of Time Magazine and lusted after the Little Red Roadster..it had arrived in Belgium in early 1990 and sported a 20.000 USD price tag for the base model...my folks (who were paying my tuition) were giving me a 70 dollar a week allowance....
I got my final degree in 1992 and starting looking for a teaching position....I was lucky to find employment almost immediately and entered the 'real world'. After about 6 months of teaching my Toyota finally died on me....this was a sign...I started looking through the classifieds to find a good used...Miata. It still hadn't left my heart.Cheapest ones were around 13500-14000 USD. I took all my savings out, sold my motorcycles and borrowed the rest from a bank.. Three days later I discovered the magic we all know...
After driving it for a couple of months I remembered the article that started it all, I looked all over, ransacked my mother's house, but it was lost,at that particular period of your life you tend to lose things which turn out to be very important years later... I got on with things, discovered Miata.net (bought a PC and got internet-wise just to access it) transformed the Miata etc....
I continued trying to get the article back, went to the Time Magazine online archives, bought the Time Almanac CD rom..but no luck I have told this story to a number of people, over a beer, during a tedious lecture, after work etc....and today one of my colleagues showed up with a huge smile on his face, he handed me something while saying 'I was cleaning my attic and remembered your story'...he handed me a mint copy of the October 2nd 1989 issue of Time magazine. On page 35 I was reunited with the article that changed my life (well a bit).