Simpson Design Italia: 1995 Mazda MX-5 Miata
The car you are looking at might have started out as a simple Mazda MX-5 Miata but it has been given the Italia Classic makeover by car designer, collector, and restorer Jim Simpson of the eponymous Simpson Design. It isn’t a bad-looking conversion of a Miata–let’s contrast it with the duckbill dinoesque thing here or the much-maligned googly-eyed thing from last week. However, I declare it looks more like the Jaguar XK or its Aston Martin DB7 cousin than any Ferrari I’ve seen, but I’m just a guy in my garage on a keyboard with a love of Italian cars and boxed wine. Find this 1995 Mazda MX-5 Miata offered for $15,570 in Marina del Rey, CA via facelvega smorggret.
From the seller:
1995 Ferrari 275 gtb replica by simpson design
$15,570
Listed 6 weeks ago in Marina del Rey, CA
About This Vehicle
Driven 100,000 miles
Manual transmission
Exterior color: Red · Interior color: Beige
Fuel type: Gasoline
Excellent condition
Clean title
This vehicle has no significant damage or problems.Seller’s Description
The Italia Classic was a rescaled, smaller and rounder nod to the design genius of Coco Chinetti, who removed the roof from a Ferrari 275 GTB to create the NART Spyder—one of which sold at auction in 2013 for an unprecedented US $27.5 million. While there were only 9 original NART Spyders built, there are currently over 90 original Italias in the world- around two thirds were handcrafted by Jim Simpson.Key Features:
Color: Rich red with a gleaming lacquer finish.
Interior: Elegant light interior featuring comfortable leather seats and high-quality trim materials.The car has been kept in excellent condition, well-maintained and cared for serviced on time. A lively and reliable engine provides outstanding performance and handling with low maintenance.
Reason for selling: I have too many cars and don’t get the chance to drive them all.
See a better way to drive something red and Italyish? tips@dailyturismo.com
Ads like this are laughable. Half of it is about a car that is not this one and has no connection to what’s being sold. Also, zero mention of it just being a dressed up Miata. This seller is living in a fantasy Ferrari world. The license plate confirms it.
It looks like a turbo setup under there. I can’t quite tell from the pictures what exactly that box is on the driver’s side. But that would make it relatively quick at least.
The problem for me with the Pitcrew and even the Simpson design kits are that if you’re a car person it looks like a Miata in a fake nose and glasses disguise, it doesn’t hide or transform the windscreen so it looks goofy and tacked on. There are a couple of other rebody kits out there that do a better job of hiding the Miata origins which to me is the purpose of doing something cosmetic this far away from stock. Every once in a while I start ogling kit car ideas for mine like the Widow SP1, Exocet, MX250 and Catfish. IMO those are much better looking but more involved kits. I spent an inordinate amount of time looking at the Vale 911 GT1 Kit for Boxsters not that long ago. Come on powerball!
Well in its favor there are no Ferrari badges on it, so it’s just sort of a generic Italian mid 60s look. Nothing wrong with that.
But if I had the money and a Miata I’d do this.
https://tipo184.com/
I saw one in NYC in front of the Guggenheim last June and it was very nice.
He neglected to mention the turbo kit.
No, seriously. There appears to be a turbo under that heat shield but you can barely see it from the one engine bay picture. Maybe he feared it would undercut his claims of reliability, or the seller doesn’t know much about this car.
I can’t say my turbo build has been reliable. 300 miles and a blown head due to bad machine shop work. But reading the forums there are guys with 10’s of thousands of miles on their turbo build on stock block. So I assume you get past the first few thousand miles and you do proper maintenance you should be good to go with a turbo built car.
This one looks like it’s fairly well made. If the turbo kit is properly installed and tuned, it can definitely be reliable – but convincing buyers may be another matter. I don’t see the mass air meter, so there’s a good chance he’s using a standalone ECU, which would mean there’s probably an interesting story in how it ended up with California plates.