Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hunting season is over, so maybe we can pick up some blaze orange suits to wear in the bird for visibility. We have big piles at intersections and I almost nailed a white VW Bug the other day as I was pulling onto a cross-street. It looked just like a pile of snow, only shorter and moving.

Ya' got to watch out for those moving snow piles!

'Twas a beautiful weekend in California... but anywhere, snow or sun, is great cruisin' with the top down (I miss my convertables)!

very similar and unusual weather up the coast in brookings,too,mostly low 60's but sunny,very nice! i believe last jan and feb it didn't stop raining at all. i miss the '91 miata i sold in memphis,but my partner has an older mercedes slk,so we get to motor it on the weekends....

Nice ride Paul!
I got to enjoy the two-hour drive from my house to a benefit for Surf Guitar Legend Eddie Bertrand on Saturday with the top down on my MR-2 Spyder. I just have the stock sound system, but listened to the "Cowabunga Surf" 4-CD box set with the volume cranked. I sure like your set up!
The drive home that night without traffic was 1 hour, 15 min.

Clint wrote:Believe me! I know it's wrong. Very, very wrong. But a little piece of me hopes a bird poops on your head.

Seing I had to shovel the end of the driveway before I could enter the street today, I can understand that.

Does Mazda still offer the Sound Bar option Paul?

Jerry, they never offered it, per se. I built the original for the San Diego Auto Show car back in '99. It was robotic--when the 1300W, 11-speaker stereo was turned on, the head unit would slide out of the dash and rotate into position, and simultaneously the Sound Bar's top half would raise 4", uncovering a super-tweeter on each side. The red arrow in the photo below indicates the line where the bar would split. Bottom half stayed as is and top half moved upward.



I re-tooled the Sound Bar without the robotic feature and offered it as an aftermarket option, along with my own line of accessories. The "Miata Mafia"* shut me down, however, and I went out of biz in about 6 months, after only selling a handful.

Here's a close-up shot of the first item, installed on my '99 Miata when it was new:



*Miata Mafia=There is (or at least, was) a group of Miata accessory manufacturers--specifically roll bar makers--who funded the biggest Miata enthusiasts' Forum (which is a commercial enterprise), and they actively worked to diss my products online. One character even wrote a negative review before I had finished tooling it, as though he'd bought one...The power of the 'Net, even back then...The demographic of Miata owners is cheap, fussy old men and women who can't afford a Porsche, so I lost.

This is my gesture to all the cattle who put chrome "show bars" in their Miatae.

Back to your regularly scheduled Reflections.

hey! i resemble that remark! (the miata owners demographic....)
but i am driving a 2006 scion xb (yes-the toaster...) now,so my demographic has probably gotten much weirder....

Paul: Simply gorgeous. Those "to scale" models are amazing. Do you have the original box?

Awesomeness.

admin wrote:Paul: Simply gorgeous. Those "to scale" models are amazing. Do you have the original box?

Oops! BUSTED!!!

! wanna go for a ride in Paul's car!

I want those speakers blaring in my ringing ears!

It was a ice week, but temps dropped daily and humidity went up. Thursday AM I put the top back up.

Today as I look out, it's about 40F and THICK fog covers the landscape. We're going for a Valentine's Day hike in Muir Woods, 4 mi from our house. Tomorrow the winter rains return...