This Lifted 1992 Mazda Miata Might Be the Ultimate Off-Road Buggy
Based on a Japanese-market Eunos Roadster, this Miata features a vintage Ferrari-esque body kit and big off-road tires.
The safari phenomenon reached its peak just a few years ago. Suddenly, lifting a sports car became extremely cool, and an entire sub-industry formed from it that especially centered around the air-cooled Porsche 911. Now there's the factory-made off-road specials in the Porsche 911 Dakar and Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato. But there were other cars being lifted and reinforced, and this 1992 Mazda Eunos Roadster is one of the coolest.
A Eunos Roadster is simply a Japanese-market Miata, which makes this lifted example for sale on Cars & Bids especially cool. It was imported in 2022 and first sold on the online auction platform in March 2023. Back then, it still had its Ferrari 250 GTO-esque body kit and its extremely unique interior, but rode on coilovers and normal wheels. It’s unclear if the original seller installed the body kit or if the car was imported with it, but judging the time between import and sale points toward the latter.
This seller, in just seven months, lifted the car with a Paco Motorsports lift kit, removed the doors, put it on steelies with off-road tires from a brand I’ve never heard of, added overfenders and fender-mounted mirrors, some off-road lights, and swapped the Bride driver’s seat for the stock Miata passenger seat. Some light archaeological examination reveals that the car came from the port of Nagoya on November 11, 2022, but also has a sticker from the port of Kawasaki. There's also custom (read: janky) frame rail reinforcement and radiator ducting, along with a reverse-clamshell front clip.
Building the Miata into its off-road iteration had to have taken at least a few months, meaning the seller has barely enjoyed his creation. There are no mechanical issues reported in the listing, and the car looks relatively clean. It still uses its standard 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine, so it doesn’t have much extra motivation to spin larger tires. Perhaps the seller realized that the lifted Miata life isn’t for them.
The auction ends on October 12, so there’s quite a ways to go before the sale is settled. It sold for $15,800 on its first, non-lifted try, so this will be a true A-B comparison for safari car values. Put your bid in if this is the hyper-specific niche you’re looking for.
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