I don’t think you have all met Murgatroyd before? She has been with Becky and I for a couple of years now, and we love her very much. Please don’t ask me “Why Murgatroyd?”; it’s just her name, and she likes it.
She is a late 1998 midnight blue Mazda MX5, Mk II.
When my old car decided to ‘retire’ and enjoy life as a sea container in the South China Seas, I knew I had an opportunity to buy a sports car, and that opportunity would only potentially come round twice in my lifetime, inshallah, and not again ’till the kids have let uni, and I have more grey hairs and bigger paunch. However I don’t exactly have a ‘sports car compatible wallet’… it’s not that it does not fit in the glove box, but that they tend to be quite expensive. Becky was initially skeptical of a car you have to lie on the floor to drive, does not have enough space for her Imelda Marcos memorial shoe collection, and in the wet corners like a giraffe on ice-skates, however I persuaded her to have a test drive. We both instantly fell in love with her, and have enormously enjoyed racing round Britain and beyond with the wind in our hair, and one eye on the rainclouds. While she has a hard top that lives in the garage, that’s not the point, and Murgatroyd gets grumpy every winter when she has to put it on.
For those of you who snigger and say things like “no hairdressing products are kept in this car overnight” you don’t know what you are missing! When new she did 0-60mph in 7.7 seconds, topped out at 127 mph, and packed 140 bhp, and has not lost much of her sprightliness thanks to decent care of her original 1.8 litre beating heart. She was made for Cotswold lanes, Indian summer evenings, and zooming about The Shire, but not for the weekly shop, IKEA flatpack, nor motorways in the rain. Which is fine by me.
But she now has a bigger sister on the market. Mazda have released the all new MX5 Mk4, and what a beast it is. A new one might set you back £18k, but it does 47 mpg, rather than the merger 33 I can (just) get out of Murgatoryd. It is marginally slower, doing 0-62 in 8.3 seconds, but only slightly heavier, and comes spec’ed up to the nines with all sorts of electronic jiggery pokery. I think it’s a shame to lose the distinctive long nose, but love the slightly angry looking front, however, I don’t think I will trade our Murgatroyd just yet.
Tim Myatt 