At $14,000, Could This 2005 Mazda Miata Lift Your Spirits?

Today’s Nice Price or No Dice Miata isn’t just a hoot to look at. Lifting the boot lid with its hard-mounted spare tire means never worrying about skipping arm day at the gym, too. Let’s decide if it also has a can’t-skip price.

Carspotting: Midtown Miata

Something is to be said about cars that do zero to 60 in the mid-teens or worse. Usually, it involves salty language and rude hand gestures. The factory-stated zero to 60 time for the 1981 Mercury Marquis Brougham we looked at yesterday is a lugubrious 13 seconds. Fortunately for its seller, a slim majority of you felt more generous with your time than your wallets, earning the appreciably slow Mercury’s likewise appreciably low $5,000 asking price an appreciably solid 57 percent Nice Price win.

While it’s often averred that the Miata is always the answer, is that still the case when the question is, “What if I wanted to drive through that muddy patch over there?” Alternatively, “How do I compensate for my gnawing need to stand out (and above) the teeming Miata maniac crowd?”

Today’s 2005 Mazda Miata Sorta-Safari has both of these questions covered. Raised on a three-inch lift, reconfigured suspension, and chunky big tires, it’s gone from a low-slung sports car to a stream-wading soft-roader. Add to that some hood vents, a custom carry-all cage above the soft top, and a rearview impacting spare on the boot lid, and it had the looks to go with that implied function.

There’s some meat to go with those potatoes, too. According to the ad, the Mazda’s 1.8-liter DOHC four has been “refreshed” and imbued with a fat turbo from CXRacing. On either side of the snail are some deep-breathing accessories from Flying Miata, ending on the output side in a muffler from Magnaflow. It also gets its spark from a Flow Force coil kit and drinks through high-flow injectors.

That’s a lot of work by itself, but there is more. Behind the breathed-upon motor is a new clutch, and behind that is a six-speed stick. The ad says the car has just 127,000 on the chassis. Obviously, there are way-fewer miles on the mods. And, if the seller is to be believed, those mods were all “built right.”

It does look pretty right. The bodywork is clean overall, showing just a few small imperfections and far too many decals. The custom cage has LED lights all around and shares its windshield frame mounting with a trio of A-pillar gauges. The interior seems in excellent shape and almost totally stock, save for the stereo and those too close for comfort gauges. It’s a similar story in the engine bay, where everything appears neat and tidy. The seller’s boast of the car being a “show winner” doesn’t seem so far-fetched based on its presentation in the pictures.

The only question not answered in the ad is title status since that’s not seemingly relevant to Facebook Marketplace. That could be a deciding factor, but we’ll have to table it in deciding the fate of this Mazda’s $14,000 price tag.

What’s your take on this jacked-up Miata and that $14K price? Does that seem like a fair deal for a turn-key Safari Sports Car? Or does that price simply not rise to the occasion?

You decide!

Facebook Marketplace out of Birmingham, Alabama, or go here if the ad disappears.

H/T to MrMikus and Brent Dupuy for the hookup!

Help me out with NPOND. Hit me up at remslie@kinja.com and send me a fixed-price tip. Remember to include your Kinja handle.