And a nice picture of @harco old car!
Very nice picture…I have just bought an NB…I now want a NA.
Curious that they’re remanufacturing “156 right-hand drive-compatible parts and 117 parts for LHD models”. Since most parts are the same in either model I guess that means they already set up to make 156 Eunos Roadster parts for the home market, 117 of them will fit Miatas too but they don’t intend making any LHD-specific parts.
With the commonality between the NA and NB, I wonder how many will fit onto an NB?
The numbers quoted in that article don’t makes sense.
This is a US listing:
~1200 parts listed there.
These are apparently all high demand. Any ever remember that day when 1.8 rear subframe braces ran out? I don’t.
Really confused with the brake pads on offer. See, I was always told Sumitomo supplied the original pads, and they never stopped making them. But I was wrong, they were actu\ally either Winmax, a Japanese racing pad maker, Pagid, Hawk or some others. Penske did the shocks, not Showa.
Its an awful lot of nuts, washers, bolts and screws.
In that list, Mazda combined the “new” parts with a bunch of parts they never stopped with the motorsport parts, and then claimed its all new…
Here is a Mazda Japan listing, which is probably more honest:
Its still curious. Mazda apparently spent some time analyzing the parts that typically needed to be replaced when restoring a Eunos Roadster. After that analysis, they decided there was a shortage of boot mounted stop lamps. And that little grommet that goes around the odometer reset knob, the grommet that apparently keeps wearing out.
The deal with the replacement soft top isn’t that they are now supplying the same hood as back in 1989. They can’t do that, as the maker of the rear window won’t do it. So, it looks like from Mazda you can buy an aftermarket hood based on the original pattern. This hood, which probably has that little bit of leather they used to add to the zip, costs £1200 in Japan. Yup. Non-original original part. Totally worth it.
A seatbelt is £204. Back in 2007ish, I had occasion to need a replacement drivers seat belt for my 1996 car. I wanted the correcct JDM part, so the tags matched the passenger. belt. At the time, the cost of a new belt assembly from a Mada dealer was a smidge under £90. But my local dealer was able to order, from Japan stock, the correct JDM belt. They apologised for it costing ~£5 more, and it will take 10 days to get to me. JDM belts have a manuafacturing date on. The one I got had a 2002 date, so I guess Mazda was getting NA seatbelts to at least 2002.
Later on, I needed new red seatbelts for a S-Limited; the webbing had been nicked. No chance of a new seatbelt from Mazda, and unlikely to find (or trust) a used seat. I found a company down in Surrey that rewebbed both belts for £70, with new red webbing. Bargain. If you have a 30 year olf MX5 and need new seatbelts as part of a restoration, its probably because they are a bit faded. So its either £400 with Mazda, or £70 with the literally little old ladies in Guildford.
Thanks for posting the lists. It’s curious what’s on there but the proliferation of under-bonnet stickers does remind me that the purpose is restoration rather than keeping old cars going. £40 for a new dimmer switch doesn’t sound too bad, but it’s hard to imagine that’s a high demand replacement part.
No, the purpose is PR. How many cars have actually been restored by Mazda since that V-Spec in 2018. In the 2005 Mazdaspeed refresh program, they managed 30 cars before shuttering it, job done.
And replacement stickers. Its the 21st century, getting a reproduction radiator sticker made is probably the easiest job around.
The question is how many of these parts are actually new, and how many are re-inventoried old parts that have sat on a shelf for 20 years? They’re probably done their research about how many they think they need to have of everything. I guarantee they are not expecting to sell anywhere near 500,000 mat sets.
Oh, absolutely, it’s a tiny number of cars, and things like stickers would cost them peanuts and have no appeal to people who just want a functional example. They would only appeal to a very particular “concourse” mindset; someone who cares about the difference between a repro radiator fan warning label and an authentic Mazda repro radiator fan warning label.
So yes, PR, but on balance I’m glad they chose to do it rather than not.
By September of this year, Mazda completed restoration of the 7th Eunos Roadster.
You can look through all 7 done so far. This started in late 2018…
If you use an online transaltion, its work xploring this site. There are stories about how hard it was to reproduce the leather, how the wheel was remade. Apparently this all started because someone wanted a new set of V-spec mats. I can sympathize, given the outrageous prices of worn out 30 year mats.
Somethings not quite rght with some of these resotrations. They are all nice cars, but Mazda has made great play of the TUV certification, and how the cars are factory correct.
But.
This is a 1990 car, and Mazda has fitted a new cowing and a new Momo steering wheel. But, at least until 2000, you could order that Momo wheel from Mazda (and it wasn’t a bad price; about £80 for the bare wheel)…
The cowling fitted is not the correct gloss finish version; for many years now Mazda has supplied only the matt finish version. Its a better part, but its not correct, and this is a part that is frequently broken. But Mazda’s research has determined they don’t need the glossy verion. I recall the replacement wheels; the rim was quite grained and felt lovely, and the stitching was black, not white. The reintroduced part doesn’t look right.
This is supposedly after restoration. I’m not impressed. The expansion tank looks a bit dirty, and the expansion type hosing looks like a bit of aftermarket fuel hosing.
Sharpeyed will spot the NB gearknob. Again, this is a nice gearknob, better feel than the original, but its not correct.
None of the wood matches. The dark, almost Mahogany, Nardi Classico does look good, but its not how they came.
More a refresh than restoration.