The Fiery End to a Favorite Car

When a gearhead looks at an abused or neglected car, the urge to rescue it from the brink is powerful. Some tender attentions levied upon the saddest of basket cases will affect resurrection if enough cash and clock are applied, so says the rule. There are exceptions to that, though, as the horrible end of this melted, torched-within-an-inch-of-vapor Miata will attest.

San Diego, October 2003
The day started like any other day, birds in trees, children dancing about like lunatics on parole. Alright, all lies. It was just about midnight on Saturday, October 25, 2003, and ashes the color of cheap chalk fluttered down like December in Wisconsin. All over East County and inland, people tumbled from their sleep to the faraway shrill of more than ordinary levels of emergency traffic. The air smelt funny, electric, dirty. On the ridges of old Fletcher Hills, folks with rooftop views were presented a truth no one wanted: the horrid, living glow of unchecked combustion laced three of the four sides of El Cajon (Spanish for "The Box," the town of El Cajon being a huge box canyon). Fletcher Hills was the lone standout, furthest west and as yet untouched, a wretched wreath of fire glaring from across the canyon.


So the day—Sunday—started out unlike anything short of post-war Dresden. The air was grey and orange, muddied brown by a choked-out sun, and every breath tasted like the bottom of a brass ashtray. If you lived in San Diego, the October fires were a week of unmitigated disaster. Through Thursday that week, freeways out of the area were blocked short of an escape to Mexico. The local and national media hung the airwaves thick with doom, which was not far from true. More than 400,000 acres were going to burn that week, some towns would burn twice in a span of days, and a cherry Miata would die a scary, anonymous death.

Drop-Top Life
It had been a happy Miata, this lipstick red '96. Bought from a Hollywood wannabe, with only 30K on the clock, the five-speed go-kart had served as a top-down commuter in Los Angeles for an automotive media-relations guy. Set up with a few juicy hi-po bits like Eibach springs, aggro brakes and sticky rubber, it haunted the canyons north and east of L.A. regularly for hide-and-seek with the bikes. Not enough boom to chase down the crotch-rockets in the straights, this Miata made for a sweet little threat in the turns. Add a diet of synthetic oil and pricey spark plugs and an upgraded fuel pump, and this Miata had a nice day every day.


Brought to San Diego a year ahead of the October fires, the Miata was being sold to a contractor friend as an anniversary gift for his wife. She adored the little "red barchetta," and it would get the only available garage spot in their ridiculous custom home in Crest. That cursed weekend, the Miata was up on a test-own, the wife deciding if she liked a clutch enough to use one daily. Bad timing, bad luck and a fire with doom on its mind saw to it the happy little Miata never left.