2007 Saturn Sky Redline

The Story

TL; DR - I had a Miata, the last straw was breaking the key off in the ignition at the Tail of the Dragon, bought the Sky from a friend of a friend after dumping the Miata. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I owned a 1994 R Package Miata prior to this, and I did really like the car. I did a decent amount of modifications to that, roll bar, seats, wheels, coilovers, short shifter, etc. It was an okay example of a miata of that generation but had some rot starting in the rockers. The bane of my existence throughout owning it however was the alternator. On the way home, the car ate its own belt and I had to get it towed home. A few months later, the alternator failed and started roasting the battery. I went to O'Reilly's and grabbed a replacement, and it worked for 6-8 months before failing on me on my way home from my yearly trip to the Tail of the Dragon with my friends. I ended up changing it out with my best friend in Virginia which was typically my pit stop on my way home from New Hampshire. Over the following 3 years, the alternator died and proceeded to overcharge or fail to charge the battery at least once a year. Fortunately the warranty on the alternator kept covering the previous one, but it all came to head when in my last year of ownership of the car, we stopped at Deal's Gap to grab snacks after driving the Dragon. That year we went there during Memorial Day weekend and it was BUSY. so busy that there was no WiFi because the amount of people overloaded both Killboy & Deal's Gap's WiFi. In the chaos of finding somewhere to park I went to lock the Miata, because its habit, and I was partially paying attention and ended up snapping my only key in the door. We then learned where I and some others parked was in the way of a private driveway and we might be towed. Fortunately my friends helped bounce the Miata out of the way while i proceeded to have a panic attack in the car while keeping my foot on the brakes to make sure it didnt roll over anyone while they bounced it on to the side of the road. My best friend, another friend and myself then went on a 6 hour round trip journey to the only mobile locksmith that was willing to try and cut a new key from my two halves of the key we retrieved. We eventually got a key made, only to get it stuck in the ignition cylinder, and it wouldn't turn unless you had just the right touch. My friend and I drove it to his house, only to discover there were 2 screws holding the ignition cylinder in place, and we could have just removed those and started the car with a screwdriver. FML. I then drove the car the rest of the way home with the screwdriver, and promptly sold it to a co-worker/friend who is in love with Miata's. As of writing this, he still owns my old car, along with 3 other Miata's. He replaced the alternator with an OEM one and hasn't had an issue in nearly 2 years, and also replaced the key cylinders. After selling that fucking demon, I bought this car effectively sight unseen from a friend of a friend, who works for a shop in the Ecotec community, and drove it home ~1,500 miles. I fixed the A/C [well...I payed a shop to do it because A/C tools are expensive and I don't want to be fined by the EPA] which didn't work when I bought it [after spending all that time in the Miata I was not owning another roadster without A/C] and I've done basic maintenance to the car as well as some handling mods and mainly just driven the piss out of it as much as I can. I've done a number of comfort mods in the interior to make it OEM+ like adding a radio, swapping out the mirror for one with lights & upgrading those to LEDs, adding a USB charging port in place of the busted ashtray that everyone tries to use as a cupholder and some other minor stuff, but honestly the car is just really nice to drive on the street and handles really nice without being too harsh, so the only thing that I really want to do to it is add a valved exhaust for more fun noises. It needs a paint job sometime soon, but those are pricey, so for now its this silly shade of red. The car has never and will never see snow, and it can take everything I throw at it and always comes back for more.