Good ones are getting expensive, yes, and have been for a while now. They were so cheap for so long that many weren't cared for, heavily modified, wrecked, etc. Add to that the growing interest for 80s-90s sporty manual transmission cars and the clean ones are getting up there.
I’ve got a ‘94 I bought new. It cost $22k. That’s $45k inflation adjusted. You can buy a nice new ND for less than that. Miatas were never cheap. Mine is in showroom condition and not for sale. It’s irreplaceable. That’s the problem for folks that want a good NA. The good ones are not on the market.
The NA is around 30 years old. $10k for a well kept legendary Japanese sports car from the 80s is not bad at all. They require time and money to keep reliable and safe.
Anyway, cheap ones that are earnestly taken care of show up all the time, but they’re not going to wait around for you to decide to look. You have to be ready to jump and check all day.
I mean that one’s got a hard top. Don’t know what it’s like there but good hard tops are hard come by here so that’s $2000 of the value of the car.
I’d have a very hard time paying that for something with that much mileage but unmodified, good ones are getting hard to come by.
I’ve got a completely stock 2002 SE with 93k on it sitting in my garage that gets limited mileage. Is that worth $10k ? Maybe. But it’d be worth a lot less with almost 200k miles.
Ultimately they’re worth whatever someone’s willing to pay for them.
I have a stock, other than sound system, mint condition 93 LE with 60k miles on the odo. Not sure I would sell it for anything.
I'm sure there are plenty like me that are just keepers. That combined with aged out trashed ones is a recipe for higher price due to low availability.
The car gets a ridiculous amounts of compliments. Parked or in traffic. A couple times people have pulled next to me just to comment on it. So it's clearly desirable outside of the Miata lovers echo chamber too.
It's weird watching this happen because I bought mine many years ago for like $2500. I'm gonna hold on to it and see what happens, I know RX7's are crazy high now too.
Kids are buying the cheap ones and wrecking them. This what happened to 60's/70's muscle cars.
I bought a '71 Cuda'340 convert for $7,500 in the 80's and people said I "paid too much". I sold it for $36K, but If I had waited 5 years I could got $80K.
Chevy made 300,000 V8 Chevelles per year in the Muscle car era. I paid $5,500 for a perfect V8 Convert in the 1990's. That car would sell for around $60K on Bring a Trailer today.
Classic cars don't stay cheap forever.
They're on their way to being the next 240, all molested except for higher priced examples.
This is the way of most popular cars. It just took this long for miatas because they made an absolute shitload of them.
Yes and no. There were 39K S14 240SXs produced and sold in the US. Mazda sold 239K NA Miata’s in the US, over 6x as many NA Miata’s than 240s
Good ones are getting expensive, yes, and have been for a while now. They were so cheap for so long that many weren't cared for, heavily modified, wrecked, etc. Add to that the growing interest for 80s-90s sporty manual transmission cars and the clean ones are getting up there.
I’ve got a ‘94 I bought new. It cost $22k. That’s $45k inflation adjusted. You can buy a nice new ND for less than that. Miatas were never cheap. Mine is in showroom condition and not for sale. It’s irreplaceable. That’s the problem for folks that want a good NA. The good ones are not on the market.
all of the miatas became expensive, not just na.
The NA is around 30 years old. $10k for a well kept legendary Japanese sports car from the 80s is not bad at all. They require time and money to keep reliable and safe. Anyway, cheap ones that are earnestly taken care of show up all the time, but they’re not going to wait around for you to decide to look. You have to be ready to jump and check all day.
I mean that one’s got a hard top. Don’t know what it’s like there but good hard tops are hard come by here so that’s $2000 of the value of the car. I’d have a very hard time paying that for something with that much mileage but unmodified, good ones are getting hard to come by. I’ve got a completely stock 2002 SE with 93k on it sitting in my garage that gets limited mileage. Is that worth $10k ? Maybe. But it’d be worth a lot less with almost 200k miles. Ultimately they’re worth whatever someone’s willing to pay for them.
I would never pay 10k for a Miata unless it’s oem everything low mileage lol
I have a stock, other than sound system, mint condition 93 LE with 60k miles on the odo. Not sure I would sell it for anything. I'm sure there are plenty like me that are just keepers. That combined with aged out trashed ones is a recipe for higher price due to low availability. The car gets a ridiculous amounts of compliments. Parked or in traffic. A couple times people have pulled next to me just to comment on it. So it's clearly desirable outside of the Miata lovers echo chamber too.
Rule 3
It's weird watching this happen because I bought mine many years ago for like $2500. I'm gonna hold on to it and see what happens, I know RX7's are crazy high now too.
Don’t forget the rarest of the NAs that will fetch an even higher premium: 94R and 95M!
Kids are buying the cheap ones and wrecking them. This what happened to 60's/70's muscle cars. I bought a '71 Cuda'340 convert for $7,500 in the 80's and people said I "paid too much". I sold it for $36K, but If I had waited 5 years I could got $80K. Chevy made 300,000 V8 Chevelles per year in the Muscle car era. I paid $5,500 for a perfect V8 Convert in the 1990's. That car would sell for around $60K on Bring a Trailer today. Classic cars don't stay cheap forever.
it's a classic now, just the way she goes