Peculiar, semi-specific what car for me thread

OK, so currently I have my 91 Miata, which I dearly love, and an 88 Conquest, which is pretty cool.

But I have a delima. I have both of them crammed in my garage, severely limiting access to either. I use a wheelchair so room around them to manuever is pretty important.

As I get older...48 last year, the Miata is getting more and more difficult to get in/out of, which frankly breaks my heart. The seat surface is low enough that getting in is a drop-in affair, but getting back out is not nearly as easy. I thought the Conquest would be easier, due to the higher seat height, but deep sills and a door that only opens @45 degrees is making it worse than the Miata.

So I'm starting to think about replacing both with something more ingress/egress friendly. Power steering, power brakes, and automatic trans are a must. Narrow sills, ie the seat as close to the exterior of the rocker panel, are also a huge consideration. The Miata is great in that department, and it's great that the sill height and seat base height are similar - for the occasional coming up short on the transfer in.

I autocross the Miata regularly, so the replacement will need to be capable there. This car will be a fun driver only, no dd requirements. A convertible would definitely be preferred but I can't decide if that's a deal breaker. I love my sunny weekend/after work drives in the Miata so top down is pretty important.

Trunk space sufficient enough to handle a small lightweight wheelchair would be cool, but in the Miata I haul the frame in the passenger seat and the wheels in the trunk, which isn't a huge deal.

I love small, simple cars, and attention getters. The Miata has bold blue stripes over the white, with blue Corbeau seats, lowered a bit with Enkei RPF1s - and I'm always getting waves from little kids and thumbs ups from other car folks on the road. It's vain I know, but I love that part of the whole driving experience.

So there you have it fellow GRMr's. Please impart thy wisdom.

thanks again, mark

What about finding a way to modify the Miata's seat/track to give you better ingress/egress?

SN95 Mustangs have pretty good ingress/egress and can be had in convertible form. A 94-95 V8 GT 5.0 is a great pairing to the AOD auto as well.

Mini Cooper S?

Higher seat, so close to the sill that the tilt lever's on the inboard side. Snappy handling & power, I'm sure you've seen a few at the Autocross.

Factory stripes on quite a few too...

Klayfish - it's the seat height in the Miata. To get it high enough to be easier would mean adding about 3-4" which would likely conflict with steering and hand controls. But thanks for the suggestion.

Javelin - Mustangs are near the top of the heap for initial consideration. I do lime something unique, but with some proper selection of wheels/ride height they can be made to look pretty damn good.

Dashpot - Another good suggestion. Are the S's available with the auto? Weren't those trannies prone to issues?

Also, tilt wheel and power seat would be big plusses as well. The Miata steering wheel angle is perfect, but I have spaced it back @ 3". I had an E30 without tilt, and it was absolutely terrible for me position wise.

WRX wagon? Volvo C70?

My first thought was also a MINI.

The Cooper S ('06 to present) automatics are standard torque-coverter types.

The R50 ('02 - '06) Cooper automatic was a CVT which should generally be avoided at all costs. The R56 Cooper uses a torque-converter trans like the S.

A woman in my region used to run a '08 Cooper with an auto due to a bum knee. She did ok will it, but didn't like it compared to the manual car she had before it. She and her co-driver were constantly fighting with the trans shifting when they didn't want it to, even in manual-mode. She's now running a Mazda 3 and likes it better.

I've gotten used to the Miata's shifting behaviors during autocrossing, and it was a bit of a learning curve. But now I know almost exactly when it wants to up/downshift and can do some throttle manipulation to influence it a bit. My valvebody has had the fluid passages opened up a bit between 1-2 and 2-3, with the pressure relief spring shimmed, so it may be more consistent than your typical early Miata auto trans.

I forgot to mention that my budget needs to be south of $10g.

mark

I just had the best idea ever: sell me the starquest for a parts car for challenge z (starquest powered s30!) and buy a v8 to make up for the automatic part of things
I just drove an s80 t6 the other day (not a v8 but pretty damn quick) and it was quite nice.
My vote is mustang though. a sn95 if you can get it, if not then late fox body

Please educate me on sn95. Is this a chassis code?

An E30 convertible ha exceedingly narrow sills and I think it's roughly wheelchair height.

Tom, I had an E30 vert last year, but the peculiar, non adjustable steering wheel position/angle made it very uncomfortable to drive. Bear in mind that my right hand never leaves the wheel in a rotating 'cuff' that my hand fits in. My left hand is constantly on the controls for gas/brake.

That car was beautiful to look at though!!

problem solved

SN95 is the chassis code for the 94-98 Mustang. 94-95 were the only years with the 5.0. 96-98 had the first version of the 4.6 and was pretty much a bum car. The first 96-98 Cobra's had a 4V version that was MUCH better. I'd still rather have the 5.0 car though.

The automatics in them are great and the V8 torque will really feel good. They should all have tilt and power seats are very common. All have PS and PB. The Convertible was also quite good. Add a targa bar or rollbar and some subframe connectors and it stiffens right up as well.

There was a lawyer who worked for the father of a friend who went everywhere with her wheelchair in a bright red Corvette. ("Everywhere" included driving around in a Canadian winter. She was generally regarded as one half crazy and one half an unstoppable force of nature.) Judging by the dates, looking back, the Corvette in question was probably a C4. I dunno how the seat height issue would work out for you compared to a Miata, but it worked for her.

Also, just as a thought, what about approaching the problem from another direction and changing the steering column in a car that otherwise works for ingress/egress? The ididit people (www.ididit.com) offer application-specific and universal models that might work for you. I'm pretty sure you could be in a very nice E30 convertible with a custom steering column and have a lot of change left over from $10k.

C4? Seriously? That car still holds the record for the widest sills in a production car. Also, it doesn't have seats, it has mats on the floor about a foot below the sill.

I remember someone in the Cendiv area who autocrossed a C4 Vette that was converted to hand-controls. IIRC, the owner was also in a wheelchair.

Sorry I don't have more info, it's been ~10-years or so ago, but that might check all the right boxes for you!

mthomson22 wrote: I thought the Conquest would be easier, due to the higher seat height, but deep sills and a door that only opens @45 degrees is making it worse than the Miata.

Would a Gull wing door kit be an option?

In reply to Javelin:

No kidding... Ingress and egress in a C4 was never a selling point.

BAM!

You guys are GREAT!!

4x4 Miata might be a tad too high

Gull wings wouldn't work as my head would smash into the lower leading edge of the door whilst getting in, but good idea otherwise.

ididit....hmm, I'll keep them in mind.

Any vette's sills are too wide for me, probably fine for someone with a lot of upper body strength though.

The 94-95 Stangs show some promise, but I was hoping for something a little smaller.

Everything smaller is going to be lower and/or have wider sills. Pick your poison.

Maybe look at 2nd Gen MR2's, Acura Integra's, or maybe Honda Prelude's.

While the E30 did not work out for you.. the E36 Might. BMW put a little more thought into making the controls easier to use.. and the steering wheel is not bus like.

See if you can try one on. If you get a Ti, (The hatchback) the wheelchair will drop right into the back without any effort

04-06 GTOs are not too bad for ingress/egress. My friend has an 06, and every time I get in it, I am amazed at how high the seats are compared to my C5 Corvette. The stock seats are pretty awesome and the auto trans and LS engine are not too bad either. The sky is the limit for mods, but unfortunately you can only get them in a coupe. I would imagine you could autocross one fairly successfully. I would be happy to get a few measurements for you if you let me know what you are after.