It's been now 5 days that I own my little wooden car (ivory 4/4, pictures are in the gallery), and finally the first rush of adrenaline and all sorts of weird hormones are slowly disappearing.
That means my brain returned to work and my hands stopped shaking, so I can report my first impressions. I've covered some 250km so far, all in sunny weather (26degC), enough for quite a sunburn!
General:
Big grin. Ride is very good. My dealer told me that the suspension still has to bed in, but for me it's nearly perfect already.
I limited the revs to around 4000rpm and still had a lot of fun, including some mild drifting, which is perfectly controllable with the narrow tires of the 4/4. Once or twice I had some fun with two baseball-capped kids in their Golf GTIs trying to overtake. (Still stayed below 4000rpm, though.)
Interior:
Wooden, riveted Motolita is great with enough grip, leaves also more room to position my left leg when off the clutch than the leather versions. Steering column conversion with metal indicator/wiper switches pleases the eye and also the fingers, although rotating them (for lights, wiper intervals) is difficult with sweaty fingers. (and man, were they sweaty!)
Exhaust:
Il concerto mi piace! Great sound, nice burbling when lifting the foot. Sound as if attached to an engine much meaner then the Sigma. And no, I don't have the sport exhaust, just the standard one. Any louder than that would be too much for my taste.
Gear box:
That the best part: The new MX-5 box transforms the 4/4 into a complete new car! The car I drove last year still had the Ford gearbox, which was no revelation at all. The Mazda box is crisp, exact and still super-smooth! The gear lever is also positioned a bit more to the front, suits my right arm much better.
And now you even have a fifth gear! Not just a kind of overdrive. I can cruise along in fifth gear at 75kph, nevertheless for acceleration shifting down proofed to be a good idea.
Any downsides? Yes, one. Indicators sound like the chinese copy of a korean copy of a 1988 Nintendo game. Which is broken. And been trampled upon. Horrible.
But then I admit I had to think deeply to find something I dislike!
So far, so good. That's it for the moment, got to go and nurse my sunburnt forehead...
Cheers,
Alex.
Just bought a new Citroên C4 for commuting (170 km round trip to work, environmental friendly and with 3,9 L/100km you even look forward to the next time you will visit a filling station for fresh diesel). On this French beauty you can switch between 4 different polyfonic tones: Jungle Fantasy 
, Urban Rythmic 
and Crystal Symphony 
...well the only one missing is probably Malvern Panel Beating 
.
