Our Classics
No, Murray’s not finally getting dapper – he’s found something growing in his MX-5
’My car now has moss growing on the interior. It’s pretty gross’
A pologies about the multiple Murrays in the picture above. It’s supposed to show how busy I’ve been with my car of late – which may come as a bit of a surprise for regular readers.
It should also be used as real-life advertisement for using videos on YouTube as learning tools. Even someone as ham-fisted and as clumsy as me learnt how to Photoshop various Murrays into the same frame – and in less than 10 minutes.
Meanwhile my MX-5’s been awoken from its winter hibernation. Unhelpfully, I’ve lost my indoor storage space, so throughout winter it’s been kept in the office car park. It’s not glamorous, but it’s got plenty of other cars for company, and at least it’s been under a cover.
Alas, that hasn’t stopped unwanted stuff going on inside it – my car now has moss growing on the interior. Fortunately, it’s restricted to the driver’s side sun visor. But it’s still gross, although I’ve managed to combat it using wet wipes and an upholstery cleaner. It’s a concoction of my own device and it stings the eyes. It also smells a bit like the aftershave an estate agent with a modern Audi A4 would wear. But, unlike most estate agents, it works efficiently.
Keen observers among you (and by that I mean people who are as anally retentive as myself ) will have seen my MX-5 gracing the news pages, specifically the Myth Buster piece in our 1 February issue. To illustrate this, a picture of the rear end of my car was used. Now, this might sound pretty petty, but I’d forgotten just how ugly the rear mudguards are on the Mazda. Seeing that picture made me determined to get rid of those guards for good. They had been on the car for more than 20 years, so it took some mighty ‘persuasion’ to get them off. After nearly an hour and much swearing, I finally prised them off. In my opinion, the car looks better without them, although now I have what is known in the Mazda community as the ‘dreaded MX-5 wheel gap’. It might be my age, but I don’t like there being enough room to sail the Titanic between my wheel and arch.
Various owners’ clubs forums are awash with advice on the matter – I currently have 50 pages of Google results for this issue. It seems to me that what I need are bigger wheels or shorter springs. If you have any suggestions, please write in.
Elsewhere, the cambelt needs changing, a job that’s long overdue. I’ve had a quote from a local company that seems reasonable enough, so next time you see my MX-5 in these pages, you’ll be knee deep in some serious, bare-all engine scenery. In the meantime, I do hope the moss doesn’t grow back.