Well, my son Bret and I did our Saturday morning exercise today - him in the Miata and me in the Porsche. For those who know the area, we took Hwy. 74 from Idyllwild down to Hemet, Sage Road to Hwy. 79, Hwy. 79 to Julian for breakfast, and back home through Anza and Garner Valley. I am very pleased to say that the car totally exceeded all of my very high expectations. Wonderful power at any speed, incredible brakes, and sublime handling under all conditions. Even though we both have Valentines I tried to keep top speed in the double digits, although there was that one nice long open stretch where I saw 140 - still pulling strong and completely stable. I'm really looking forward to the track on a set of race tires where I won't need the detector.
A few pics below - the Miata has been our shared AX car, it will now become Bret's track day car. A full cage, seats, harnesses, and a Spec Miata suspension are on order for it. I have promised him that I won't track the Porsche until his car is ready - but it's going to be very hard to wait.
Thanks for all the positive responses to my original post - I found this forum very helpful when researching my car and I am looking forward to being an active member.

 

not from Cali, but looks like fun, enjoy your new ride....

 

Sounds like a great run. I had my Targa 4S up to 140 once in northern California. I used my Garmin for the speed. The speedo read 143, and the Garmin said 140. The car was so stable, as you say. I only did that speed once as I worry about varmints that might suddenly jump in front. In fact, one day I let a friend drive the car, and he was driving down a mountain highway at only about 40 mph, and suddenly a grouse or something flew out of the grass at the side of the road and it bounced of my hood and windshield. Scared the beegeezus out of both of us. Luckily due to the low speed there was no damage done to the car. Don't know how the bird did.

I love those TechArt wheels you have. And those exhaust tips are very nice too. Glad to see you're out enjoying that fine piece of machinery. I may have to take a run to Julian some weekend soon myself.

 

thats a great drive

 

did it all the time years ago, when i was a teen

 

Nice! I had a 1994 A-Package Miata that I sold last June when I finally saved up enough to get into a 997. I never owned a car anywhere near 16 years before the Miata. It was a very reliable car with one exception. I needed to have the tranny rebuilt because a couple of sychros went south on me at only 50K. There aren't many cars out there that only need one major repair in 16 years.