Welcome to the Project NC Journals - A place for me to ramble on about my little project NC MX-5! It’s unlikely to be an interesting read for many, but it’s here nonetheless to store some memories that this little red car has given me and maybe even have some sort of useful information. At the time of writing this first post, it’s been well over a year since getting the car, but we’d may as well start at the beginning...

Coming from a history of owning a rumbling turbo Subaru, MX-5’s were the complete opposite to what I liked in a car. But in 2012, as I was about to head out to the UK for exchange, I had a grand plan envisioned which included buying an original NA MX-5 (which had to be red) and doing a solo road trip across Europe in it. As it turns out, that plan never came to fruition, especially after finding out how much the insurance was going to be for a foreign exchange student with limited funds in a £1000.00 car (from memory, mostly over £3k and some up to £10k!).

Fast forward to April 2019, and the vision of having a fun, cheap to own and run, road trip car pops up again. Highly influenced by an amazing experience a few months earlier in an MGB race car at Spa, I get hooked on the idea of a roadster. Now a little bit older with the era of stratosphericly high insurance premiums behind me, ‘This could happen’ I thought - But this time I was looking at the MK3, the car that all pure ‘Miata’ owners seem to hate…And I can see where those thoughts come from.

Whereas the original MK1 MX-5, closely based on the Lotus Elan and the Colin Chapman ‘simplify, then add lightness’ philosophy, the MK3 was the first complete redesign of the car and seemingly headed in a different direction. With increased dimensions all over, added comfort, practicality and increased weight, it was a recipe for disaster with the purists. But in the grand scheme of things, the car was still lighter than most and the 2.0L provided performance that could give the much loved Mazdaspeed MX-5’s a run.

My reasons for going down the NC road? I wasn’t too keen on getting involved with the rust issues of the older cars, I really liked the the exterior design of the NC1 (the front grille of later designs, in my opinion became a bit too smiley), and the electric hard top made a lot of sense for added security and comfort, especially when I now lived in a country that was almost always raining.

Although I also had a test drive in the the current ND MX-5 which definitely seemed sharper and lighter, the NC seemed to be better value at the time. The cash saved over the new model would be perfect for making those small tweaks to make the NC which make it even better. On top of this, the ND retractable hardtop was more like a targa top...No thanks, if I was going for a drop top, I wanted the full 360 degree experience.

After trawling AutoTrader for a few weeks, a nice red example popped up with low mileage, the exact spec I was after, and only a short distance away. After the test drive, I was sold on the open air driving experience and if it was anything like the MK1 and MK2, the potential for it to be made a little bit better here and there with some modification. With that in mind I believed It would be perfectly adequate at doing some road trips, the occasional track day and most importantly, be reliable - all for a very reasonable sum of £6500! After biting the bullet and going for it and having the wheels repaired and repainted by the dealer in anthracite, here it is in all of its (almost) stock form glory - Project NC!

2007 Mazda NC MX-5 (MK3) PRHT (Power Retractable Hard Top)

Engine: In-Line 4-cyl, 1999cc

Power: 160hp @ 6700rpm

Torque: 138lb ft @ 5000rpm

Transmission: Six-speed Manual

Weight: Approximately 1180kg

0-62mph: 7.9 seconds