Hi mick
I live in Kent and have read that mx5 restorers in pevensey are good
Yes they are recommended on here.
A few up in or near the East Midlands (near me) to recommend but a bit far for you.
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The rust has to be really bad on an NC for it to be visible on the wheel arches ( the rust shows up first at the back of the sills under the wheel arches and on the sub frames ).
I viewed about 6, 4 had very little rust , 2 I would not touch.
Your utopian NA doesn’t exist. Most by now have had multiple owners, several sill replacements often of dubious quality. Roof leaks, mouldy carpets. They are cheap to run if only taken out of the garage for a 10 minute Sunday polish.
For anyone wanting to drive around in a modicum of comfort and cover a few miles an NC is a good choice.
If you are in Kent have you been here for a look at the stock Used Cars in Maidstone, Kent | Maidstone Autocentre always seem to have plenty of cars on show.
It’s a very easy car to work on, I have done all the work on mine myself other than a full suspension alignment.
For routine servicing , I would say any local garage you trust wouldn’t have a problem looking after it.
You would only need a specialist for some thing unusual (like welding repairs, or an unusual problem).
Or save yourself a few hundred pounds a year and have a go yourself.
For the OP’s £8000 budget it probably does.
The NC was conceived for a different type of MX5 owner. Interestingly, Mazda designers told me at the NC focus groups was that they were less interested in selling the NC to NA and NB owners, but had in their sights people who would normally have brought cars such as the Fiat Barchetta and BMW Z4. Which explains why it is a completely different car, where there s greater emphaisis on cruising comfort than other attributes. That reversed with the ND, where the marketing was unavowedly about recapturing those original NA owners.
Mazda Corporate played considerable homage to all 3 prior generations in the ND global launch video.
Thanks glug
Will visit in new year
Depends a lot on what sort of experience you want and your personal circumstances. Condition is everything. If you’re not mechanically inclined than buy one that’s been fully rust treated from one of the MX5 specialists. They’ll do high mileage with regular servicing. If you have to park outside then a hardtop is good for the winter. The NA and NBs are a trad Brit sports car experience without the problems. NC models are heavier, bigger and more luxurious and more electronics to go wrong if you don’t stay on top of it. If you want cossetted thrills then get a 2 litre NC with a folding metal roof, for a traditional feel get an early pop-up light NA with a wood rim Nardi steering wheel. Personally I think the facelift NB with the 1800 vvt engine is the best all rounder. They’re all nice though and you can always change later without loosing much if you buy sensibly.
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Can get a good NC for that. It’s the most comfortable, safest, and heaviest MX5. I’ve had 4. Hated the normally aspirated one. The turbo ones were great.
£8k might you get a high mileage basic ND1.5 privately?
Many NBs for a lot less money. At least they have ABS and some people like them. I’ve had 12, so they must have something going for them. I’ve cut down to one car and it’s an NB, with turbo etc.
A really good NA could be had for £8k and under. Unlike the others, it would be an investment. I’ve had several. Every one was a different experience, and a more interesting experience than any later cars. Attracted more and very positive attention, the downside of which being that it can take ages to go shopping. People let you out of exits. Kids shout “nice car mister”. The others were just cars. NAs are curiosities, characterful, fabulous fun to drive, including when standard, even with just the 1.6 engine. Just remember that they don’t have modern safety features. But cheap and easy to maintain, and 28-33mpg (same as the others except ND). There’s a young man in Durham driving around in the best car I ever owned - an NA Monaco with every possibly mod including a supercharger. It was worth more than £8k though, and will be worth more again now.
Any MX5 around £8k, if bought carefully, will be fine as a DD, and for long journeys, and, with a few inexpensive mods, for track days.
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The Mk1 MX5, the NA, is the only one to have, really. The others are just pretenders.
The NC, the one with the hand grenade engine ?, no thanks.
The NB, likely to eventually be the rarest of the MX5’s due to Ford shareholding/management influence at Mazda, and resulting quality/rust issues. … . But also, a low point in MX5 aesthetics.
No thanks.
Yes, the NA is the one. There is no other.
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To be fair, there is little Ford influence in the NB. The chassis rail rust was because of an update to the NA unibody in order to meet crash regulations (telescoping chassis legs). The rusting is a design feature. Other cars with the same approach, had the same issue, if they survived long enough. The difference being, most of these other cars (eg some Citroens) rarely lasted long enough for rust to be a problem (something else broke to condemn a car. When was the last time you saw a Mk1 Citroen C4).
Mk2 interior quality is better than the NA (the NA having door cards made of hardboard with vinyl stapled on top). Dynamically, the NB is better. But most of the improvements, (interior, chassis braces, cockpit gussets, engine etc) can be retrofitted to the NA.
The Ford MX5, if there was one, is the NC. That was the model Ford brought in Callum Moray, as much a Ford man as any, to overhaul the Mazda range from pensioners favourite to something that was sporty. When done, he went back to Ford. His brother, Ian, was at Jaguar during the Ford period.
The first evidence of a Ford interest in the MX5 was a NB-FL that Ford turned into an engineering study, using a Lincoln V6, Jaguar heads, modified Lincoln intake, RX7 gearbox,RX7 diff, RX7 brakes, many years before the Rocketeer conversion, which used basically the same engine. But I havde a feeling the Ford version was better engineered.
I have a feeling this was more of an Apprentice’s project rather than any serious Ford concept of a factory V6 MX5. It never appeared as a concept car.
My comment about quality issues with the NB came direct from a well known MX5 parts supplier. They described several parts off the top of their head that they described as not a patch on ( ie inferior materials and construction ) the equivalent part on the NA. They also expressed the view ( this was about 3 years ago ) that the NB could/would be the rarest MX5 to survive.
My own understanding of the front chassis leg rust issues on the NB is that there was a decision to be made on how to meet regulatory requirements. The cheap option was chosen, which created a water trap. Ford’s shareholding in Mazda then was around 33%, and it’s influence on Mazda management was overwhelming.
Ford increased sharedholding in 1996 (when Mazda was on the verge of bankruptcy), which was after the value engineered series 2 NA appeared on the road (the ones with the thin carpet, badly wearing seats, accelerated sill rusting, chome gauge deletion, exhaust hanger deletion, chrome engine breather pipe deletion, chrome cam cover deletion, steering column spacers on non-airbag cars etc). A 25% shareholding in 1979 apparently translates to awesome quality control in 1989, but a 33.4% share in 1996 translates to risable QC in 1998…
The NB is by no means the rarest MX5 in the largest market for the breed, maybe its rarest from a conceited UK point of view (the UK seems to be home to the cheapest MX5s in the world)
Long term the rarest models will be the NC and ND. There will be little incentive to preserve these cars once EVs become common place, and the number of petrol stations drastically reduces. These cars will become increasingly more difficult to maintain as parts and servicing capabilities disappear (but MOT thresholds remain significantly higher than older iterations). I still think the last classic ICE car has been already built.
Of course, if Ford was looking to cut corners, they needn’t have spent money redesigning the NA door handles. This is the NB prototype
They could have saved a bunch of money by not redesigning the interior, seats, door mirrors, fitting Mk1 Mondeo door handles, not bothering with a glass rear window, abandoning loss making global limited editions.,
The NA and NB will, if solid, start to appreciate and are much cheaper to maintain, NO CAN BUS. Engines and gearboxes relatively bullet proof.
Due to the lack of complication the NA/NB will probably outlast the NC as a hobby proposition, can bus on old cars is a nightmare.
NCs before about 2010 have a cast rather than forged crank - you will see a fair number of NC for sale with knocking engines.
NDs apparently can suffer very expensive gearbox and suspension problems at about 70k.
A good, definitely not rotten, or if repaired, done by a reputable specialist, NA or NB will long term hold their value and are probably truest to the MX5 spirit, but not really a daily driver, although some do - my NB is tucked up for the winter!
I am a 78 year old motor trader and believe me, post 2000 ish cars with can bus can be written off for electrical problems.
S’no use coming out with all that whataboutery. Every time Ford is involved, quality goes out the window. The person who made the NB remarks to me had no particular axe to grind about a particular model/version, that I could discern.
And the issue with the front chassis members is self evident.
For me, Mazda got it right first time with the design of the NA. Then it got uglified. As it happens, I quite like the styling of the NC. Just, no thank you to the engine. The ND ? When I first saw one, the first thought that passed across my mind was “…Eurobox…”. It looked derivative, and almost dated from the get go. I much prefer the Fiat 124 for what they did with the car ( aside from the engine ).
And a happy new year from all of us NB owners 
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I made my decision by buying a new ND RF recently and am very happy with it. Everything else being equal (which they are not, because I have no personal garage), at this point in time, I would still go for an ND. I personally do find it attractive and the inevitable age-related problems of the older models are not in my opinion compensated for by any advantages that I perceive. The money involved is not an issue, as I see it, but the downtime in repairs and maintenance are significant to me.
But, I would not disagree with anyone who holds a different view. 
Happy New Year,
David
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