Photo Courtesy Bring A Trailer Auctions
Is This Your Last Chance to Own a Miata?
We have been watching carefully as early Miata prices have gone from those of throw-away used cars to near collectibles. As with any emerging classics, the first to get valuable are the pristine low mileage cars and the rare versions. In fact, Bring a Trailer …
Love that color!
Sacrilege - but I've never thought that yellow flatters the shape of the NA. You know what they say about opinions, but Smurf Blue is the best NA color.
Basically, NAs bottomed out a while ago and the nice ones are climbing out of the depreciation abyss. NBs are probably just starting to do the same. NCs are still in free fall.
I always use the MGB as a guide for what's likely to happen. It's a better match to the Miata than the E30 M3 or the 911 in terms of production numbers and market placement. In that case, really nice Bs climbed in value but the bottom of the market didn't move all that much. There are still throwaway MGBs.
One thing you guys missed, though - you made the mistake of using "Miata" to indicate "early Miata". Mazda's still making Miatas. They've been in production for almost 30 years now. NCs are Miatas. NBs are Miatas. NDs are Miatas. You need to be a little more clear.
Now everyone comes in and says how they bought a concours-quality NA Miata for $1500 on Craigslist...
Keith Tanner said:Now everyone comes in and says how they bought a concours-quality NA Miata for $1500 on Craigslist...
Mine was only $1,200.
(I kid! I kid!)
BringATrailer is far and away the worst possible place to buy a Miata. Beautiful car, but craigslist was made for Miata sales.
NBs can still be had for a very very reasonable price, and I've just started to look at NCs. You can get a good bit of car for well under 10k now
I don't think NBs will ever get the same classic status as the NAs will, and the NC may end up being the equivalent of the Lotus Seven Series IV. If you're looking for chassis for the dollar, they're a good way to go.
It's no coincidence that my personal Miata is a Smurf 1990 with a 1.8 swap. Love that early interior.
I'm planning on keeping my NB MSM even though I've maybe put 1000 miles on it the last 4 years. Not really because I think it will be worth more in the future, but because I like it more than I could sell it for and I just enjoy it.
I see cheap ones on the Facebook marketplace, but they're usually pretty ratty.
T.J. said:I'm planning on keeping my NB MSM even though I've maybe put 1000 miles on it the last 4 years. Not really because I think it will be worth more in the future, but because I like it more than I could sell it for and I just enjoy it.
The MSM could very well achieve classic status, it's the exception to the NBs.
Every time I sell and older car they start going up in value shortly afterwards. I just sold 2 NA Miatas in the past year ($2,700 for the '96 M edition, $3,350 '94 R-code. A/C worked on both.). If I'm any indicator of selling cars at the wrong time, then now is the time to buy. :)
That yellow and Velocity Red are the best colors ever on a Miata.
wae said:Keith Tanner said:Now everyone comes in and says how they bought a concours-quality NA Miata for $1500 on Craigslist...
Mine was only $1,200.
(I kid! I kid!)
Mine was $1400! Over ten years ago. And it needed a top, a clutch, brakes...
Keith Tanner said:T.J. said:I'm planning on keeping my NB MSM even though I've maybe put 1000 miles on it the last 4 years. Not really because I think it will be worth more in the future, but because I like it more than I could sell it for and I just enjoy it.
The MSM could very well achieve classic status, it's the exception to the NBs.
Especially since SOMEONE keeps stuffing V8's into them... 
Yeah, the Manic Miata is relatively modified and far from perfect, but it is rust free. The recent pricing has me encouraged to know that if I ever get tired of its E36 M3 that I can get back out of it for about what I paid 8 years ago.
Good thing I only like beater Miatas.
I should have kept my BRG.
Pop up headlights drive up prices.
You can still find cheap NA Miatas in immaculate condition for pretty cheap. We bought a bit scruffy 91 for $2100. It could be made immaculate for 2K more.
While I also am aware nice Miatas have gone up I have to say I really dispise the whole buy me before the prices skyrocket bit. Not saying the predictions are wrong but this always seems like a self feeding mania.
Best color on the NA, in my opinion, was the blue / green hue they had in either 96 or 97. My memory is a bit fuzzy, but it was pointed out in one of Keith's books.
I'm also not a fan of the speculation and collector market for cars. It has a nasty habit of making my favorite hobby a commodity, an investment. The people who can afford to buy cool cars only with intentions to sell them, good for them, but what a waste of a car, you know? Life's too short to not enjoy them. To be clear, things like the F1, the truly rare Ferraris, those sorts of things? Sure, treat them as the crown jewels of the automotive art that they are. But a 240z, Miata, Corvette, Supra, GT-R, etc, etc... nah. Keep them clean and if you're gonna modify them, please do it tastefully.
I say this, despite being the potential future beneficiary of such climbing prices.
Also, if the NA is the one to collect, why is swapping as much of them out for NB engineering so popular? Much as I like the early cars, the NB is simply a better car in just about every way. Styling, obviously subjective, I dig all Miatas, but driving experience is not quite so subjective...
I kind of already wrote about this on Japanese Nostalgic Car's post about rising prices. I basically said that for many cars the rising values are probably more disenfranchising than aspirational for young enthusiasts in an age when interest in cars is waning anyway. It's always sort of sad when a car's value ascends to a point that the entire market for it is an exclusionary circle-jerk between a certain class of people in a society where cars and their net worth have more class mobility than actual people do. Of course, i wrote that about more expensive cars than a $12,000 mx5, but those cars were $12,000 once too.
Eventually, ownership of any model of non-autonomous car will be a hobby for the 1% anyway, but some cars will get there (or are already there) much sooner than others. I don't really bemoan the 'loss' of any one car to that, but when I think about the ways in which they are all dead canaries in a dark tunnel that I don't see light at the other end of it tells me that 'the rest of us' need to enjoy 'what still is' while it lasts.
People pay me 5k or more to do rust repair on their Brit sports cars and then haul them off and spend untold thousands and several years to finish restoring them.
In that light, a 12k cream-puff Miata seems like the deal of the century.
Nice to know that I can buy a 10k Miata, drive it for five years, and get all of my moneys back. The reality is that owning a Miata has now become free.
Pete
Most likely the miata on its way to the scrapper is my last miata, not that I'm happy about it. And yes, the rise in prices on NAs is the reason. I just don't like the looks of the NB and NC, and by the time NDs are in my price range, well they probably won't be.
It is a bit sad, but that's the way things go.
Keith nailed it on comparing it to the E30 M3 not being relevant.
NA production ~212,000 cars.
E30 M3 - They brought ~5000 to the US from 1988-1991, it's also the most successful touring car of all time. And that ignores multiple rally and endurance wins.
Miatas are best known for racing against themselves. 
That's not to say I don't like Miatas, I do. Had an NA track car and NC DD, and will likely end up trading the 135i in for a new ND.
I hope they are going up. I've got a very nice low mile rust free Texas NA, with hardtop, sitting in my shop. Maybe I won't lose too much when I sell it.
I'm kinda with Keith and his MGB comparison. Out here, there is no shortage of grotty ones for cheap, but nice ones are becoming harder to find and are going up in value. Well, or at least asking price.
Talked to someone over in Sacramento who parts out NAs as a side hustle yesterday and he pretty much confirmed that reading. He's got no shortage of NAs to part out, but cheap ones that are worth doing up are getting rarer.
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