This particular car story starts with a letter. Specifically, a letter Miata-owner Sal Latorre Jr. sent in to Modified a few months ago. Sal is one of many readers who wallow in the shadows, holding their collective breaths until they've read one-too-many sterile car features. You see, Sal loves to see cars actually driven. To see them beat into submission, with every last ounce of power squeezed out onto the pavement/tarmac/dirt. So when Sal's pent-up aggression bubbled over, he mailed a letter to Editor-in-Chief Peter Tarach, begging to see more cars within the pages of Modified actually driven-and driven hard. Let's face it, many of the vehicles that grace the pages of any automotive publication are just begging for a good flogging, while many pass by with nary a burnout.
Once Sal's letter reached us, a chain-reaction of sorts occurred: Peter agreed with Sal, then Sal suggested his boosted '94 Miata as a potential candidate of sorts and a few months later yours truly found himself at Roebling Road Raceway behind the wheel of Sal's car.
The story of this Miata goes back a few years, though. Sal and his wife spent some years living in the New York City area, specifically in the car-unfriendly streets of Brooklyn. The Miata's bumpers showed the ugly signs of the "parking by feel" technique that happens on a regular basis in the tight confines of the borough. The breaking point occurred one evening, however.
"I looked out at my car, and there looked like there was something in it," Sal recalls. "And some guy was actually trying to steal it. I ran out to the car, but by the time I got up to it, the guy had taken off."
That event of sorts, combined with the Latorres wanting an actual yard for their dog, moved the family back down to Atlanta, where Sal had spent some of his early years. The Latorres, their 25-lb puppy and a few personal items made the 1,000-mile exodus in the Miata, and shortly after arriving in Atlanta, the car went through quite a transformation. Sal had attended some BMWCCA autocrosses in the past, which helped him realize that with the Miata, he had quite a starting point for some sort of enthusiast-type machine.
"I fell in love with the Miata all over again," Sal says. "I realized I had a car that contained a rally-bred engine, and one that could learn to love some boost." From that point on, Sal took his time to make sure the project came off right.
Now, normally at this point in a car feature, the author swings the copy toward the specs of the vehicle. To be brutally honest, the same story gets told over and over again, in just about any publication, in just about the same order-background, engine specs, suspension specs, interior/exterior specs, closing thoughts. Rinse, repeat, for just about any automobile in the world.
While we've included the background of Sal's Miata (it feels prudent, as this car went through the hell of Brooklyn's entirely car-unfriendly environment for some time, and is hardly a "show pony" of a car in that regard), the important departure here is from specs to actual driving impressions-on an extremely fast and Miata-happy circuit in Bloomingdale, Georgia. Roebling Road's 2.2 miles are brutally quick, with high-speed sweepers and little elevation change, conditions that suit the Miata's lightweight, rear-drive setup. Sal also gave us a chance to drive the car to the track, which gave us a feel for the machine both on the road, as well as in its preferred environment. And it's no slouch out on the highway, hanging with just about anything that crept up on us over the four-hour trek from Atlanta to Roebling.