After the Rollerskate (silver '99) got stolen in March 2004, I spent a
very frustrating summer driving the Forester and a rented PT Cruiser.
Now I know what a genuine non-Miata "slushbox" feels like, and the
complaints generally promoting manual transmissions over automatics are
more understandable.

After cruising the pre-owned car sites all summer and into the winter,
and noting that A/T post-2001 Miatas vanish 2 hours after the ad is
posted to the sites, I finally nailed one down. In January 2005
AutoTrader had an ad for a Midnight Blue 2002 no Tupperware A/T Miata
at a Nissan dealer in Windsor, Ontario. I was sure it had already been
sold, like all the others, but I called anyhow JIC, and it was still
available!!! A deposit of $500 Canajun minibucks held it down while the
details were ironed out.

Windsor is a minimum of 2 days away from Montreal, and I hate spending
that much $$$ without seeing the item, so I appealed to the Canadian
crowd on Miata.Net to see if anyone in Windsor could check it out. The
response was phenomenal! A group armed with a digital camera mushed
their way through Windsor's unaccustomed 1-foot fall of snow to check
out a car they were not buying, on behalf of a stranger.

THANKS GUYS! I owe you all at least a beer the next time I hit Windsor.

The broken AM/FM antenna was fixed, the rusty lump on the trunk lid
where someone had closed it on something pointed and too high was
fixed, and the lid repainted, and all the scuffs and scratches were
removed.  At no extra expense.

The car arrived at my door on a large car transporter (no extra
expense) and she rolled into my life. It was obvious from the start she
was a "she"; the late Rollerskate had never expressed an opinion. As
she was an import from Ontario, she had to go through the $80 CAA
inspection (as if there were no home-grown rusty smoke-belching
antiques on Quebec roads already) and get registered. As the late
Rollerskate was never recovered, and my ham call plate disappeared with
it, I couldn't use my original ham call for the new plate, so I applied
to the Federal Government Industry Canada department and obtained an
additional ham call sign, and that's on her now.

After wasting one complete day due to the SAAQ (Société assurances
automobile du Québec) giving me all the wrong info, I finally got it
registered and we were ready to roll.

She came with Federal SS 535 "performance" Chinese-made tires, which
were absolutely HOPELESS when shown a single flake of snow. Luckily we
had a bare-roads condition for a couple of days, and I was able to get
to my tire guy and have Toyo Observe G2 Plus snows and new rims
installed.

About three weeks later, while testing the snows on a twisted road over
Rigaud Mountain, she told me her name; Banshee. I looked it up on the
web and a Banshee is a wailing Irish spirit who howls outside a house
in which a death will occur. Oh, great! I asked her if she really
wanted to be named after an ominous Irish wraith, and she said that
wasn't it at all. She preferred the US 1950-era fighter jet called
Banshee. OK. That's better.

So Banshee she is, and those Chinese tires are actually very good.
Great grip either dry or wet, and a search on the web revealed they're
the preferred tire for Russian drag racers. We have just participated
in the M'sters Club Spring Run around the twistier parts of Vermont
with great success.

So, I'm back.

Nora (imagine a Canadian flag here)
=======================and Banshee (imagine a '02 Blue Miata here, glossy!)
http://www.nheh.ca/blue/blueimages/C0810-blue.JPG Banshee
http://www.nheh.ca/blue/blue.htm  ARRIVAL
http://www.nheh.ca  HOME PAGE
http://hobbystage.net/miata/nora/ the late Rollerskate