As title states, looking to upgrade from the 1991 rusty bucket supercharged miata I used for rallycross now that I know RWD is the fun place to be! I figured I would try GRM first before scouting the absymall plane of facebook marketplace.
Location: MI or midwest, willing to travel to buy, or Florida (will be in FL in March and can buy and drive)
Are you looking to have it road legal or trailering to rallycross?
Values on Boxsters are crazy right now, but there are still deals to be had at auction, even with paying for a broker, etc. But likely not a clean title so a bit of work needed to be road legal
I picked up a crushed but running Boxster on eBay last August for $2250 that I'm slowly rebuilding. But with value up I'm considering pulling the stock engine and selling it because I may be able to get double my money back out by selling the engine. I was considering a VW 1.8t swap in the future anyways.
Good question! I would prefer a road legal/worthy vehicle for occasional jaunts around town, I do plan to trailer it to events.
I've been asking the boxster experts on here and it does sound like the place to buy is IAAA/CoPart for deals. The pricey part for the boxster is a hardtop, I already have a Miata hardtop so I am leaning that direction (and boxster prices seem to be up higher than miatas at the moment?)
Wow, there are some not bad condition Miatas on IAAA, check this one out for example:
https://www.iaai.com/VehicleDetails/42163708?tenant=US&RowNumber=6
where are you located?
this auction house does not rip you off like copart & brokers combo...
The fees kill all the fun. They add significantly to the price. It stopped me from buying low cost cars from iaai.
billstewartx said:where are you located?
this auction house does not rip you off like copart & brokers combo...
Detroit metro, MI. So unfortunately, anything within a 250mi radius is rusted to death.
Thoughts? If it truly is this parts package, not a bad deal in this market.
This could be a decent deal, I may have to take a look!
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/3304825613088216/?ref=browse_tab&referral_code=marketplace_top_picks&referral_story_type=top_picks
Aaaand a black local hardtop, this might be a sign
That Royal Oak car looked nice, and sold quickly.
Does rally Cross require a hard top? If you eben think you might buy a Boxter, get that top now, while you can. If you don't buy a Boxter then sell the top and get your money back.
RX8 project in my small town. I don't know the seller but I recognize the location of the pictures.
A left field suggestion. This one is 2wd (not 4wd) so that make it rwd only. Does rally cross have rules about height vs width for something funky?
Canadian Miata in Indianapolis w/ hardtop
Too nice for RallyCross likely and must've been a good deal, selling that fast in the winter.
Yes, hard tops required. So keeping in the Miata family is appealing for sure. It seems a bit harder to find 986 hard tops as well.
RallyCross width must be greater than height. That x90 would be hilarious. There's a couple RAV4 90s 2 doors that run in our region with alltrac swaps, so that wouldn't be far off!
In reply to engiekev :
One of my friends picked up a nice southern 2.7l 986 with hardtop for very low last year. He almost drove it at Nationals instead of his NB.
Deals are out there. He wasn't even looking for a Boxster, as he'd just bought a Scorpion, but when you have the space and the spare cash, it is hard to not buy something.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to engiekev :
One of my friends picked up a nice southern 2.7l 986 with hardtop for very low last year. He almost drove it at Nationals instead of his NB.
Deals are out there. He wasn't even looking for a Boxster, as he'd just bought a Scorpion, but when you have the space and the spare cash, it is hard to not buy something.
I'm keeping on the lookout and keeping my options open, if a good deal on a nicer NA shows up I'm all for that as well. There are some great deals on spec Miatas out there, which is a great starting point but for rallycross less than ideal due to the extra weight of the cage and SM dampers would need to go.
For now the NA supercharger ratty miata needs some bare minimum work for the next event and the fancy tow vehicle (Cayenne Diesel) needs attention before I could pick anything up with a trailer.
I started this thread to test the waters for any GRMer's selling a similar vehicle, NB or 986, would love to pick one up from a fellow GRMer or rallycrosser!
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to engiekev :
He almost drove it at Nationals instead of his NB.
Almost drove it...except it needs an engine.
That said it was still a good deal, I was a little jealous hearing how cheap it was even for the issues it has.
Hardtops are hard to find but if you're patient and willing to travel a bit you should be able to find one a lot cheaper than that.
In reply to dps214 :
It does need an engine? He was telling me his contact said it was most likely oil cooler related.
I thought it was overheating a lot and needed head gaskets...which isn't really how those engines work. But I haven't heard anything since nationals so maybe there's been some new developments. In any case even if it does end up needing an engine it was still a pretty good deal, just a lot of effort to get there.
In reply to dps214 :
The story he told me was that it was perfectly drivable but it was mixing oil and coolant.
OTOH I have not spoken with him since Nationals so maybe new developments have developed.
For sure, these engines seem to have failures in much more exotic ways than mere head gasket leakage 
Might be too nice for what you are looking for, but I am in the Royal Oak area and have a 2000 S with all the needed engine stuff taken care of (LMS, IMS, etc) Car is from Nevada and California, 109kish miles no rust, I have tons of maintenance records etc. Wouldn't be as cheap but you would have an extremely solid car to start with.
LarsBrunkhorst said:Might be too nice for what you are looking for, but I am in the Royal Oak area and have a 2000 S with all the needed engine stuff taken care of (LMS, IMS, etc) Car is from Nevada and California, 109kish miles no rust, I have tons of maintenance records etc. Wouldn't be as cheap but you would have an extremely solid car to start with.
I might be interested in taking a look, S trim seem hard to find and would make a more fun weekend toy than a base model? I haven't driven a 986 yet, just heard good things for RallyCross and it certainly would match our cayenne tow rig better than a Miata that's rusting to death! However it sounds probably too nice for RallyCross, it's going to get beat up.
I ended up buying Lof8's super clean NB, so ends the search
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/cars-sale/super-clean-99-miata-for-sale/191602/page1/
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