1993 Eunos Roadster S-Limited - Running Restoration

Kacper-K · 14 November 2024 00:30

The car I’m offering for sale is an 1993 Eunos Roadster S-Limited
The car is located near Manchester, M4
The price is £2,250 O.N.O

Up for sale is my other 1993 S-Limited, imported into the UK through Ireland back in 2000/2001. There is a whole folder with service history going back all the way to 2001/2002, but no Japanese history of any sort bar the Deregistration certificate pictured below, which is fairly standard with import cars.

The story with this car is that I had originally bought it thinking I could use it as a donor/parts car for my main S-Limited which I’ve been fixing up for the past year (Documented in a separate thread), but I soon realised this car was too good to break so I used it as a daily whilst working on the other car, but since that one is now coming back on the road, I no longer need a second car so it’s time to move it on.

The car is currently sat at 180,750km, and I believe I am the 3rd owner since it was imported. MOT until May 2025. 2 keys. Fitted with the Toad Powerkey immobiliser. All in all it’s a fairly original car. It still has most of the original S-Limited specification including:

Yellow engine strut brace
Bilstein shock absorbers
Headrest & door card speakers
Red interior
Red tonneau cover (Rare)

It’s currently sat on a set of Enkei Racing wheels, which are very similar to the Enkei’s which were commonly fitted to the NB, but I found out that these wheels are actually the precursor to that model and there are a few subtle differences.

Being the S-Limited, it’s one out of 1000 to be built with the early 1.6 and a red interior, making it one of the rarer and more desirable models.

The red interior is generally in good condition, with no tears or crack in the seats, and although there is the common wear on the driver’s side bolster it’s actually not too bad and better than most NA’s. One thing to note here, is that at some point in its history the car interior had some kind of a treatement done to it in order to make the interior a two tone black & red combination, which certainly makes it more unique. This means that the lower part of the dash and door cards were painted black. I know it’s only a paint or coating of some sort since it is possible to see it coming off and revealing the original red in a few places.

The radio unit has been replaced with a modern Sony unit that has both Aux and Bluetooth functionality for convenience. This unit does support Radio, however the previous owner had the aerial deleted due to a water leak, and he decided to outright remove it than repair due to a lack of use.

Mechanically the car is perfectly sound. In my 15 months of ownership I’ve covered 12,000km (Approx. 7,500 miles) and had no trouble whatsoever except one of the rear calipers getting a bit sticky, which led to it being replaced with a new set of pads and discs.

I gave it a full service back in May (Oil, filters, spark plugs), and replaced the radiator with a like for like aftermarket unit identical to the OE plastic ones, as the original factory one was on it’s way out, meaning the coolant was flushed and replaced too.

What really lets this car down is the paintwork. It looks a lot better in pictures than it is in person, as it has suffered from being out in the elements over the 30 years it has now been on the road. As well as that it has the usual MX-5 rot problem on the front and rear ends of the sills. On the back it’s the usual rot from the inside out problem which is common on these, and to be honest whilst the rot is obvious, it’s not in terrible shape so it should be relatively straightforward for any welder to put right.

On the front end, at some point a load of debris had gotten stuck beetween the lower part of the wings and the sill (Which is a common mud trap on the NA), meaning there is quite a lot of corrosion in that area, but again it is salvageable. The front wings are quite rusty and probably easier to replace than repair.

The reason why I’ve described it as a “Running Restoration” is because I’m fairly certain it will need some welding in order to get through it’s next MOT in just over 6 months time. Otherwise it’s a perfeclty solid, usable car you can drive back home and keep on using over the weekends.

It comes with some spare parts in the boot, including about 1 litre of oil.

To summarise:

The Good:

Very presentable & tidy interior
Red tonneau cover
Good service history since import
New radiator 6 months ago
Aux & P/S belts replaced last year
Rear discs & pads done 6 months ago
Both mirrors have been taken apart and reassembled with stainless steel bolts from Autolink
Larger capacity battery
Engine runs smoothly and pulls well

The Bad

Usual MX-5 rust issues along sills
Both front wings are quite rusty and will need replacing eventually
Paintwork is quite poor in a few places, and will likely need more than a simple buff
No record of the last timing belt/waterpump service
Alloys in need of refurbishment
The mohair soft top is now 10 years old and the age is showing. If I were to keep the car, I’d have it replaced.

All in all a very good project car which deserves to be brought back to its former glory.