journey to my sports car

As a kid, I was always fascinated by cars, especially the sporty kinds. I had all the hot wheels and matchbox cars in my collection. Infact my grandma once said, I will grow up and become a driver! Well in those days computers weren't a big thing :-) but thats where I ended, like most people of our generation

The addiction for cars, got me hooked to all things cars - formula 1, top gear, fifth gear, etc :-)

I had some experience driving dad's maruti suzuki 800 and fiat premier padmini in my engineering days and ended up owning a hyundai santro while working in Bangalore. A rather unlikely car to modify, but I managed to get a a nice CAI (cold air intake) and FFE (free flow exhaust) on the santro and even a few track days. I did seriously think of a ford fiesta sport or mitsubishi lancer in those days, but knew very well anything more exotic (hell even a mitsubishi evo X) would just be a dream given the crazy import duties in India. Held on to that dream as I knew one day my time will come.

The time came in sep 2010 when I moved to the land down under and although in aussie-land good sporty cars are 2-3 times as much as they cost in US/UK, I knew I was close to getting one. Infact the day I got my residency visa, I was already checking out websites to understand what can be had in aussie-land. I even had a thread http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/luxury-imports-niche/89307-sporty-car-40k-80k-aussie-dollars.html hinting there was a friend moving to australia, when it was actually me. Got some good suggestions then.

Things didn't come easy though. Frequent work travel kept me from getting my driving license in australia. There was no direct conversion for an indian license (understandable), so had to go through 2 computerized tests (learners and hazard perception) and some driving lessons, before even being eligible for a drive test. After an agonisingly long wait, finally got to giving my drive test and passing it first attempt in sep 2011. The night before the drive test I was back to searching for cars, and infact even during the driving test I was thinking – I can't believe this is it, I am passing today and getting a car soon!

The test was passed on a friday (23^rd sep 2011) and I was already doing test drives on saturday and sunday with just a drive test result in my hand (license hadn't even shipped from vic roads). There were so many options – lotus elise, mazda mx5, rx8, holden/ford performance cars, mitsubisi evo X, subaru wrx sti, golf r, nissan 370z, audi tt, etc.

Given that I follow road rules and there are strong road rules here, I knew anything very high on power would just be pointless. But I did wan't something fun to drive, which would mean a rear wheel drive. That narrowed it down to lotus elise, mazda mx5 and rx8. I figured the elise was barely in stock, impractical as a daily driver (it rains a lot here) and slightly over my budget. RX8 was out due to its awesome yet impractical engine and only marginally useful claustrophobic rear seats with almost no leg room.

That was it the decision was simple, it had to be the MX5 – no tons of power to sort you out, just a modest 2 litre 167bhp, rear wheel drive, 50:50 weight distribution for lots of fun on the twisties while still staying legal on speeds. A great track car, but also add to that creature comforts like stability/traction control for wet days, power retractable hard top for occasional top down fun and 7 speaker bose sound system. I don't need more than 2 seats at the moment and the boot is big enough for weekend shopping from the farmers market!

In under a week of passing my drive test, I had my finances sorted out, jumped some hoops to get a loan (due to no previous borrowing history), negotiated a cool 10% off the recommended retail price to end up in a brand new aluminium silver coloured Mazda MX5 Special Edition ( MX5 Special Edition ). There are only 200 speciial editions made with some nice bilstein shocks, cool alloys and grey leather insides. I chose one of the only ones available at a dealer next door and it was driven only 26kms, out of which 6kms were driven by me during the test drive.

The car is loads of fun, still running in, but I am enjoying every bit of it. Here are some pics I took on the morning after delivery