the polished hood look popped up on clubroadster.net a couple times and i was pretty into it at the time. i figured it would look great with the olive drab job on the other panels. seeing it in person made me glad i never devoted the time and effort into removing the paint and hand-scrubbing it to almost-mirror. i’d rather be driving it.

here’s where it gets controversial. i feel compelled to add a disclaimer before i get into this one: in no way am i attempting to say that these cars are bad or calling their owners’ taste into question, this is just personal preference. having gotten that out of the way, FUCK! that’s one way to drop a few thousand bucks on your car without enhancing performance…

by my estimation, this guy has more into his miata than i have spent on any car purchase in my life. the GV rear lights alone come close to $1,000.

the interior looks like the results of a drunken late-night credit card shopping spree at Rev9AutoSports.com (a lot of miata owners know what i’m talking about, even if 99% of us don’t have the cajones to click “submit” on the checkout page). I spot so many dress-up parts that range from deceptively subtle all the way to unmistakably baller that i am having trouble keeping count.

this is definitely a divergent path from the one i’ve chosen for my car. seeing all this up close and personal makes me glad i spent my money elsewhere. no doubt the owner enjoys his driving experience – and i hope this is a daily driven car – but quite honestly i feel the spirit of my miata begging me to rip all of the unnecessary stuff out of it so i can pare it down to a barebones machine with the sole purpose of going faster.

at one point i had dreams of a quick little bastard with enough style to make snobby euro owners think twice about turning up their noses, now i just want the former. i suppose it could have something to do with my decision to switch to a heavy sedan with big power goals for my daily ride.

in any case, a couple years ago I would have killed to have this exact roadster, sans-bodystripe maybe. red on white? check. custom headlights? yep. trick interior? triple check. this car could be and probably is the miata equivalent of a supermodel. but i like chicks that eat off the dollar menu and send nudes on the first date (because it’s classier than putting out but you know it’s a sure thing anyway). and from the condition my car was in at this show, you can tell i don’t spend hours maintaining the interior and exterior.

chelsea’s car drew attention from attendees and onlookers alike.

the no-frills, no-windows, straight through exhaust had everyone asking the same question, but the gang was more than happy to share their story as many times as they had to.

1983 jaguar xj6.

then i saw this:

i was really dumb and forgot to go back and look for which engine it actually was.