Should you take into account the weight of your typical passenger when considering if it is a sports car or not, does the extra weight of a painted console or glass rear window make a real difference in the performance of the car...what about the size of the coin holder....is $4 in quarters going to disqualify it from being a sportscar? As I see it, the difference in weight between an early 986 and later model is pretty small and is much about options order than anything else. Even a 987 is not all that much heavier than the earlier cars.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NoGaBiker
This is so funny -- deja vu all over again, as they say.
I've owned Miatas since 94, been a regular on Miata.net since 2000. One of the most oft-repeated thread topics is "has the Miata morphed into an overweight pig?" It started at 2170-ish pounds for a 1990 stripper, and a current power hardtop NC model weighs a little more than 2500 pounds all in. To the Miata crowd your 97 2.5 weighs about 400 pounds too much to be a sportscar. To the Elise crowd a 1990 NA Miata weighs about 200 pounds too much to be a sportscar. To the Midget or Sprite or Spitfire crowd an Elise weighs about 300 pounds too much to be a sportscar.  Let me tell you, it gets old.
Sure, I could go with a definition of "sportscar" that says the Boxster is too heavy and civilized to be a sportscar (though I would disagree.) But to split hairs and say a 986 2.5 somehow makes the cut, but the extra 100 pounds of a 986.2 with its decadent glass rear window and functional quarter-pound cup-holder assembly now fails to make the grade... laughably pathetic. |