The long version

This is the car that started the affordable-roadster experiment the ND is still running today, and the habits haven't changed much across three decades — buy cheap, autocross on weekends, replace the top when it wears out, repeat. Pop-up headlights and a curb weight barely over 900 kg give the NA a cult following distinct from later generations, but parts interchange across the whole Miata lineage keeps even that nostalgia affordable to maintain. Clean, unmolested originals have started pulling collector money as the pop-up cars get scarcer, but most are still exactly what Mazda built them to be: cheap, disposable fun nobody feels guilty about using up.