Too Cheap to Ignore
The cheapest way to keep one good car running is often to buy a second, worse one, and this MX-5 was bought entirely to be taken apart.
That logic feels wrong until you have priced individual second hand parts. A single panel or a working assembly can cost more on its own than a whole tired car with all of them still attached. So you buy the car, take what you need, and pass on the rest.
We stripped the pieces the good MX-5 wanted and left the shell in a state best described as informal. No front bumper. No number plate. Still, entirely, a running car.
Which meant that for a few weeks it did laps of the neighbourhood in exactly that condition, purely because it was funny. There is a specific joy in driving something with no dignity left to protect. It went where it was pointed and made everyone who saw it look twice.
Eventually the useful parts were gone and someone else wanted the remainder, so it moved on whole.
It was never going to be the car anyone remembers from the photographs. It is one of the ones I remember best.
