Inventor of the Miata Reacts to Tiktok Miatas

this here's Bob Hall he's the creator of the Miata and the cult following that you all love and we're going to force him to react to the Miatas of Tik Tok my name is Jimmy I'm a producer at donut Jimmy is the most qualified person at donut to talk about Miatas way too many's obsessed with them good luck Jimmy we'll do Nolan nice take care all right if you ever want them Miata I can tell you where to get them all right sounds good Jimmy's got some spares I know a lot first clip before looks good like that yeah yeah a little dirty Wheels need be some lighter what happened to it oh I know what that is I that's okay you know this outfit that launched the commercial satellite that landed on the moon yeah yeah yeah this is the modified Miata they have for their moon rover oh it's the new Mars Rover and you can see it's that's not the moon is it it looks like that that looks like Nebraska looks like some driving a Miata made into an SUV I personally I really like off-road Miatas I think they're pretty cool and I think it's uh really cool to see that the community is just taking the Miata and putting it in any environment Bob no I'm sorry excuse me EXC me can I have my money now no look I I'll be serious for a moment here it bothers me less than a Miata sitting resting away in a junkyard it's being used use for it might not be the same use I would use it for but that doesn't mean it's bad so Bob how would lifting the Miata change the driving characteristics here's the regular Miata here's the lifted Miata that's a lot of flipping the Dynamics of the car would be pretty awful it wouldn't be what the Miata is about if if I were going to do a lift a car on a rare car an unusual car I'd find one of those 323s painted the weird colors put 323 four-wheel drive in it and I'd make that the lift thing all right that's pretty cool how about we get to the next clip Bob yes that's a fine idea Rick oh wait you are Jimmy Rick is in cast Blan C steel okay let's see the the video oh oh man is that after the accident or before that's a good question I think there's stance but this guy doesn't understand what stance is it also looks like he's missing the window in his hard top maybe that's because the car flipped over okay this is one of the downsides living in a free country I'm glad that we have you on the show today oh okay I'm glad to be here um you know particularly because you stole the keys to my car it is very rare it's one of one so they did these six Miatas and these six 323 hatchbacks and these colors you come out with a new car that's a great thing to do they took body shells off the production line that had just finished being primed they packed them over to the Prototype shop and they hand painted the teal that I've got here there was an electric blue there was a purple real pale metallic green there was an orange and there was this metallic yellow some are still around there's one missing so if you find the purple one call me next clip oh at the car wash in a soft top oh no that's definitely going to leak you think oh my good duh no it's leaking that's how you rest out the partial shelf where meata is always this leaky did you guys account for rain when you built these cars it's it convertible when they're new and tight they're fine but let's face it it's a monoco uni body car they loosen up the my car has got 50,000 Mi and it's looser than it was but the important thing is when it's raining when we had the big rain here in California it didn't leak in that would you consider your yourself a a hard top guy or a soft top guy I'm I'm okay with both the hard Top's fine if you take it off you got a place to put it mhm how can people today try to avoid their Miatas from leaking like this keep an eye on all the gaskets make sure the top is in alignment and hopefully your car is not Wheeling too much that going through a car wash won't cause much tortional twiking on to the next clip it's one of these drift guys it's pretty good oh oh my God didn't need that wheel that's a control arm bent he's messed that Ro up yeah he really did mess that Ro up and then some were you aware of the drifting scene when you you design these when you worked at Mazda if you wanted to go to the racetrack you had to take driving lessons one of the guys who was our teacher was uh Mazda's driver to in at Lama with the 787 wow we started talking cuz drifting had started in Japan and he said why do you want to drive a car to go slow word said by a true race car driver do you think the Miata is a good or bad drift car it's front drive so that automatically gives it a leg up it's like the a86 Corolla great drift car it's funny to me that you find guys making drift cars out of front drive cars and the first thing you have to do is convert it to rear drive now that tells me that speaks volume but do you think with the wheelbase of the Miata being shorter probably makes it more vicious that's definitely going to make it less controllable when it gets to that point of bye-bye daddy which is what drifting is really right if you want a car that responds really well on the road short wheeel base is good and there's a point at which where if you want to go beyond that it it can become a liability but having said that I think the idea of somebody modifying a Miata with 128 inch wheelbase would be a real a real riot I'd love to see that maybe we'll find do you have one of those in here yet tell me Bob have you ever gotten your Miata sideways when I'm doing my Forza occasionally I'll get my I'll get my Miata a little bit out of shape I'm I'm an ofg okay but you don't know what that means no what is that indulge us old fart gamer okay that's a new one I like Forza a lot okay and I do you know the group races online and it's really fun when you have these guys that are sideways totally smoking and wondering why they're getting beat it's because the car set up for drifting it's not set up for going around a corner okay well audience if you ever run into Bob and Forza watch out on to the next one Bob hey that's outside the laser car wash that must be what happens after he gets out outside the car it must be so look at those giant bubbles That's My Boy uh B huh yeah that's frightening it would imply to me some sort of pressure offset of some kind but what so I know the secret to what's going on here please tell me please I beg of you tell me please won't you please tell me he's got the AC on ah and the seals on the door have gone bad they're good for bubbles they would ensure that the car the air is being changed in the car that's not necessarily a bad thing until you go to the laser Car Wash how about we bubble on to the next clip sounds soapy to me if you guys don't know about this trick I'm about to show you something that's going to blow your minding lock the car all right door's locked wrong why didn't the door lock I know this trick so watch Lock lift the handle yeah this is a this is a common trick in my in my brain this is very common this time when we go to close the door hold the door handle open just like this now watch close your door and boom There You Go Japanese cars from the first time they started selling them here in 1958 till power door locks took over when you locked the door of a Japanese car pressed the lock button inside you lifted the handle and closed it it's been like that from day one with Japanese cars because it was a requirement in Japan you know how the Miata door handles are are Chrome originally we wanted them body color really but it meant keeping three sets of door handles for the red white and blue for the launch cars so no we can't do that okay fine they didn't they actually didn't like the door handles and they say women won't be able to open the door because of long nails so the only female employees we had were a couple of admin people who had had short nails so we bring Karen in and we're videotaping it and she leans over and you know what the door handle right right yeah she looked at it she put her knuckle in it pulled it out and my boss said no no no Katan open it the way you would she says that is the way I would but she was on there explaining that when you have long nails you don't do things and she showed you a dial a phone with a pencil or with your knuckle or something and that went back to Japan and then the door handles were okay that story has kind of blown my mind Ken made them go to that's awesome thank you Karen thank you I personally for a while when I first got into I didn't like the door handle I always like the NB door handle but then i' I've come to really like the uh the na door handle you know you know where the NB door handle know why that was done uh no why money money that was not a cheap door handle that makes sense when was the last time you saw a car with wheel metal door handles instead of plastic ones it's been a while it's been a while it has been a while so since we've got a handle on that why don't we look at the next one Bob Bob Bob that was great thank you I think the idea of somebody modifying a Miata with 128 in wheelbase would be a real a real riot maybe we'll find it do you have one of those in here you we'll see there it is there it is what is that thing is that a Miata that is my heart is just it's I envy the guy in one respect I wish I had enough money I could do stuff like that junk that I would never use how would you fit that in your garage that's the thing I question it's pretty long knock a knock a hole in the back of the garage um what's he got for a power plant I wonder if he built up any sort of frame underneath it be fascinating to to learn some of the details if this is your car shoot us a DM on donut Instagram we'd love to hear from you Bob would love to hear from you yes indeed and uh we'd like it if you took us for a ride we did have the idea of taking the metic components the suspension components and doing a sports sedan po we played around with it we couldn't get any interest from anybody partially because Miata was selling like hotcakes you know was there drawings ever of this car Mark Jordan did a couple of sketches for it and some had a little bit of Miata taste in them okay but it did have me out of door handles I would love to see that me too I would have bought one Bob let's go to the next clip I've had enough of this long Miata we should definitely clip this one short that's a good wow dude Bob really good at this that's that's probably a lot of power way more than 120 horsepower and none of it none of it would be useful at night because you don't have decent headlights wait wait wait maybe if you drove it really really really hard the turbos would glow get get little bit yeah just a bit you know just a bit we always thought the races it should be in are ones that have left and right hand curves right because anything else is just a drag okay so get it anybody that was predisposed towards straight line stuff you used a rotary there are cars you buy for performance that's why the RX7 existed that was the race car that if you wanted to go really fast you would buy the RX7 when we did the Miata was we said what we got to make is a really really really fun blank canvas well you know who the last designer of a car is don't you is the buyer and we've seen that already a couple of times if somebody wants to lower it wants to give it more power that option is there if he wants to turn it into a an SUV well we didn't think about that but sadly that option is there yes boys I am hella stumped on the Miata and I need you guys' help so I got the entire car put back together I got the exhaust put back on that's put together that's yeah that exhaust is facing the wrong way yesterday the fuses are good the ECU is plugged in the jumper wire is still in place however whenever I turn the key the ECU doesn't light up and our fuel pump is in private BCU does power up whenever it's plugged in with the USB however that doesn't fix the problem inad of the main Rel should be receiving power so I'm completely stumped Bo first off this guy's got a big turbo it looks like in his car did you ever Envision the first generation Miata having a turbo pick up raised in some meetings uh turbos are incredibly popular in Japan we were expecting to sell about 2500 cars a month we were at at 4,000 Japan was expecting to sell 500 a month M they were at 3500 to 4,000 wow nobody expected that the problem was so bad that we couldn't get enough wheels made really so they were talking about the the B package being put on steel wheels because we're running out of Alloys when it's going like that why do you want to spend the time and development and money to do that when there's no indication that it will sell any more cars the story of the Miata is just so awesome to me like it's pretty much a California designed car yeah I mean that's that's not completely wrong yeah I get nicknamed the father of the Miata which I despise the father of the Miata would probably be Kenichi Yamamoto who was the head of engineering became president of Mazda and I once made a chalkboard scribble that he thought was intelligent um they put me a design didn't get put in PR like I thought I would be because I was a journalist at the time I'm sitting there working on a B series pickup truck proposal get this pounding on my shoulder and here's Mr Yamamoto in the California Studio say Hi boss well what are you doing I'm doing B series pickup you should do your sports car idea I had completely forgotten about it okay seriously so he disappears and he goes talk to my boss and uh my boss comes out you should work on a B series pickup too so you may work on the sports car project as much as you want before 8:30 in the morning and you can work on it as much as you want between noon and 1 and as much as you want after 5:30 so in your own time yeah and I did I started coming to the office about 5: in the morning and just started working on it and did no sketches no no design work it was all about what do this car got to be I learned many years later that's how Yamamoto tested someone do you believe in what you're doing great guy like second dad which is kind of scary he was probably if he heard that he'd be going oh he and after him would be Nam Toshi hio hii who's a program manager that actually took all this stuff and made a car out of it because again without him what we have nothing when we finished with the so-called chin last proposal MH which if you look at you say that is the car it went back to Japan and the guy who was the program manager for it said it looked fat it looked fat and and he did a lot of tightening of the car here tightening the radius bring the sides and the problem was we worked on it for so long we didn't see the problem it was a theme we came up with in California and then we kind of finessed it but it was a global it was a global project well you definitely made history no I just was just doing my job it just happened to I like the job and something I want to do let's zap on to the next one he's he's so good this bothers me what what are they showing Aston Martin for look put a Miata put a Miata up there put a Miata up there look what they've done horrible thing has been done to it oh that's owned by our showrunner Tony behind the camera I love this car it's it's the only one in North or South America we think there's only like four of them in the world it's great it's great it needs it needs a paint job to get rid of the the white butt and you need to get different Wheels the wheels though look a lot like some Aston Martin Wheels multi spoke multi thin spoke I don't think these wheels are as appalling as you believe they are I think they're appalling that's just me I'm a big wheel nerd but have you ever do you ever have black black wheels on any of your cars no okay cuz if you did I'd say you know nothing about Wheels I never buy I never buy black wheels what about a white wheel white wheels are on off-road vehicles and stock cars they look good though on off-road vehicles and stock cars absolutely right you know who else wants to put white wheels on it who Sandro see white Wheels look good I'll tell you I actually had white wheel once and I would sat in the living room and I had a piece of glass on the top was a table I have a few of those tables in my perfect in white I I actually think this is way cool what do you think of the no popup look I was one of the few guys that didn't want to put pop-ups on the original Miata really I had two design areas where I I I disagreed with the direction they went I would have liked some sort of fixed headlight and I would have liked if they had put the number plate down in the bumper and kept the panel in the rear simple that's a that's a hot take Bob I wasn't expecting that to you to be a non popup guy one thing I like about it the pop-up headlights were round remember they were starting to do Square popups there's something about round headlights and car eyes I like I don't know what it is Bob do you have a favorite body kit that's ever been on a Miata from Mazda or any other aftermarket company you hear the Crickets what I like the most is I like the lip the little That was supposed to be on all cars the simpler a car design is the longer it will last this next clip shows why Ferrari drivers should never ignore Miatas on the track what about Maserati drivers I don't think there's any Maserati drivers on the racetrack oh yeah you're right that's a nice Ferrari look at all these Miatas I bet they're all about to pass yeah yeah look at him go uh that's great I know I know why that was so easy for the guy in the Miata that was Magnum Pi's old car and it's all beat up okay he didn't take good care of that car then it was in Hawaii it rusted maybe the engine's got rust in it or something who knows right have you ever gotten in a Miata race car never never would you ever get behind the wheel of one yeah if somebody didn't mind their car getting total sure in the back of our mind thought that a series a Miata Series would' be kind of cool it's be it' be appropriate for the car it's a kind of entry level makes it easy for a guy that wants to go out there but again we didn't design the car for that for racing the whole idea was to make it this blank canvas that that that Avail of the ability to do that is there we were much much more enthusiastic about that than saying specifically we we need to make it a race car I got to make it high performance we kind of actually shied away from that as much as we could get out drive your 90 horsepower Miata learn to drive no no 115 if it's a good one 15 only only only the English got stuck with a 0 if you want to see other legendary Automotive Experts react to things going wrong on the racetrack make sure to click here Bob thank you so much for coming out it's been a pleasure yes I can imagine it would be yeah we're now we're now best friends we're going to play Forza tonight that's right but I'm going to use the controller yeah I'm going to use a wheel fine get get you'll be beaten how about we go take armas for a drive after this uhhuh let's go sounds good yeah bye bye guys see you

Channel: Real Mechanic Stuff

Views: 6,398,382

Keywords: real mechanic stuff, mechanics react, real mechanics, donut media, donut, james pumphrey, jeremiah burton, nolan sykes, zach jobe, justin freeman, mechanic, react, just rolled into the shop, car fails

Id: ND7jqbGwHUI

Length: 17min 53sec (1073 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 18 2024