1990 Mazda Miata Convertible. Located In Brighton Michigan. on 2040-cars

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Hiss off! Venomous snake takes refuge in Australian man’s engine bay

A man who went out for a walk in suburban Sydney got quite a surprise when he returned to his red Mazda. Left on his windshield was a hand-written note warning him that a venomous red-bellied black snake had taken up residence in his car. "Hi," the note read, "this afternoon a red Belly slithered up into your front left tyre. Please be careful." The snake is a native of wet areas of eastern Australia that can grow up to 2.5 meters (about 8 feet), making it one of Australia's largest venomous snakes. They're considered dangerous, but shy, unlikely to bite unless severely agitated. When Michael Garbutt popped the hood, he found the snake coiled up inside in the corner. "To say I was shocked is an understatement," he told The Sydney Morning Herald. "On reflection I don't think I would have put my hand out to pop the bonnet if I had known it was there." So he took to Google to look for a local snake wrangler and found Andrew Melrose, of Shire Snake Catchers. By the time he arrived, the snake had moved down into the engine. Then it moved behind the wheel guard, and then under the engine to the front bumper, then back to the right front wheel. Melrose said he coaxed it out by gently touching its body. "I've done it my whole life," he said. "It looks simple but if you haven't done it before you can get killed real quick." In the end, Melrose ended up grabbing the snake from the ground outside of the car and dropping it in a bag. The whole de-snaking process took about an hour. Melrose said the snake is common on the swampy peninsula area where it was found, since it finds plenty of frogs, eels and other creatures to eat. He says it's common to find them in cars. "If they get startled they look for the first place that is safe," he said. "The place I found it was very bare. There was no place for the snake to escape. People would have startled it and the only place for it to hide was the car. The driver could have driven off unaware and parked and the snake would have left the car when it felt safe." So let this be a lesson for you, Autoblog readers: familiarize yourself with your local venomous snakes. And keep the number of your local snake wrangler handy at all times. Or just don't move to Australia.Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Image Credit: Unknown Auto News Weird Car News Mazda snake

'Ringbanana' Miata is improbable 9-minute Nurburgring car

The combination of being inexpensive, capable, reliable, and friendly to all skill levels makes the Mazda Miata one of the world's most popular platforms for motorsports, but the roadsters aren't exactly rocketships. What would it take to lap a ratty, first-gen example around the Nurburgring Nordschleife in less than nine minutes? We're not exactly sure, but the Ringbanana team intends to discover the answer. The project is the type of thing that gets dreamed up after a few too many pilsners: buy the cheapest running Miata available and put as little money necessary into the roadster to make it capable around the 'Ring. As the Best-Motoring-inspired intro explains, the Mazda is largely stock other than some Fulda performance tires, possibly aftermarket springs, and a stripped interior. The video above shows the baseline test, and the convertible manages a 9:21.8 circuit, which doesn't seem too bad as a start. The video below goes into far more detail about the project's genesis and its goal. Plus, the two hosts are quite entertaining when replying to the comments from the original clip. We wish them the best of luck and look forward to following along on Facebook to see what it takes to get the Ringbanana below nine minutes. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Better as a coupe | 2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF First Drive

The sun can kill you. It'll also make you hot and sticky and smelly. It's a real nasty thing despite, you know, making virtually all life on Earth possible. Now, apparently, despite these risks, there are those who enjoy driving around in their car being slowly baked alive by our local star. It's insanity, really, and that's not even mentioning the indignities your hair suffers at the merciless force of the wind. So convertibles, then, who needs 'em? Just take the Mazda MX-5 Miata. Wonderful little car, barrels of fun, but wouldn't it be better off with 100 percent less sun? Besides keeping your dermatologist out of business, a solid roof would also lead to less wind noise, greater structural rigidity, and better safety for the vampire population. Nothing but Ws on the board. Alas, the 2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF is not the ideal solution to this perfectly sane line of reasoning. It is not the BMW M Coupe or Porsche Cayman of Miatas. It's more like the 911 Targa of Miatas, although since its rear window lowers, the most accurate analogy would be the Honda Civic del Sol of Miatas. Feel free to put that on a billboard. Admittedly, it's a pretty neat bit of engineering and design, and despite the incredibly flattering comparison above, it is accurate to describe its overall look and concept as unique. RF stands for "Retractable Fastback," which is an on-the-nose description. With the entire roof mechanism in place, it does indeed resemble a fastback in profile. From a rear-three-quarter view, that fastback is revealed instead to be buttress panels with a longer deck and a verticalish window placed between them. The Ferrari 575M Superamerica would be another point of reference, but the Miata RF is far better realized. It's particularly impressive how Mazda's designers managed to carefully reshape the Miata's rear quarters to fit and conceal the buttresses' cut line. From most angles, there's no indication that they're anything other than contiguous with the rest of the car. The little black panels that look like darkened windows at first glance are less successful, but they're also clearly necessary to create the desired buttress look and to conceal the roof mechanicals beyond. Ah yes, the compact mechanicals that make the fastback retractable and subject you to the sun's wrath.