The Banshee
1995 Mazda Miata
The Banshee Project came about because everybody is getting sick and tired of watching all these great, classic muscle cars go up in price, and the owners suddenly begin thinking their Camaro or Mustang or whatever, is now a priceless artifact and just too valuable to drive. So we’ve got a whole bunch of people sitting around in lawn chairs, polishing their “baby” with a diaper and talkin’ about the “good ol days”. What fun is that? To make matters worse, there are a lot of gearheads out there that would love to get their hands on a classic muscle car so they could really DRIVE and enjoy it, but they just can’t afford it. So I decided it was time to go back to the original mind-set of Carroll Shelby and the Cobra, and stuff a high horsepower V8 into a tiny, late model sports car and call it the Banshee, because it is going to be a screamin’ machine!....
The First Generation Mazda Miata was a perfect choice for this kind of transformation because just like the AC Ace that Carroll Shelby used, it’s generally considered a girl, sissy car, and about the farthest thing from a macho, hot sports car as you can get. But if you dig past the Miata’s image, you find a pretty serious sports car platform under the skin. Perfect to tweak with...
The best part is, by using a mid-90’s Mazda Miata, you not only have a car that is readily available…(they built a billion of ‘em)
... they are not so old that they are all rusty requiring a complete restoration to get ‘em back on the road (you don’t have to build a whole car)
... They have a good top (something the Cobra only dreamed of)
... They have power windows, power brakes, power steering, Air conditioning... all the good stuff that you want in a modern daily driver, and the potential to be WICKEDLY FAST!!!
... and finally, they are CHEAP! I got mine with a bad engine off ebay for $2500 bucks with no rust. It has all the above options, and I’ve seen em even cheaper than that, so you can’t beat the price.
Here’s what we’ve done so far...
Paint Code
Banshee Blue
Credit: Custom Color created by Stacey David and Ron Payton of PPG
| CODE | COLOR | CUM. | PARTS |
|---|---|---|---|
| DMD1675 | Blue | 615.9 | 615.9 |
| DMD1675 | Blue | 821.3 | 205.4 |
| PRLX4 | Crystal Blue Pearl | 913.7 | 92.4 |
| VM4145 | Flamboyance Blue | 963.0 | 49.3 |
| DMD1683 | Black | 995.9 | 32.9 |
| DBX1689 | Clear | 1098.5 | 102.6 |
