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Kevin's (Babalouie) MX-5
Photography by Felix Alim

JDMST: Have you always wanted an MX-5?
I used to hate MX5s, and was actually on the lookout for another AE86. When I couldn't find a good one, a friend suggested the Clubman special edition of the MX5, which was a little-known, lightweight special that came with LSD and lowered Bilstein shocks. One (sideways!) drive around the block and I was hooked....it was every bit as good as my old AE86, but with the top down, on a sunny day, how could I resist? I bought it straight away.

JDMST: Describe the driving experience with your car.
The best part of driving the car is simply the communication. There's no power steering, and so everything's quite heavy and immediate, and you sit so low that 60km/h feels like 600km/h and you feel everything. You can chuck the car into corners hard, you can adjust the line with the throttle, you can hang the tail out....and all the while the car is friendly, communicative and on your side. It's one of those cars, where even after owning it for 4yrs, you still want to jump in it and go for a drive, just for the hell of it.

JDMST: What are the negatives about your car, or MX-5's in general?
The worst thing about the car is the rawness. It's constantly buzzing and hunting and if you jump into the car with a headache it'll get worse before the end of your journey. MX5s over the years have gotten softer but this is the original, stripped down MX5 deal....which is great but not all of the time.

JDMST: Do you have any off-street kill stories?
I once beat Josh Young and Beau Yates in a drift comp....well sort of. Josh beat Beau in the Top 8 and then I went up against Josh in the Top 4. This was before Josh turboed his AE86 and it was very much in the early days of drift. Josh went wide around Driftland corner and I tucked up the inside for the overtake, which in those days, was a round win since we followed japanese rules at the time. I didn't pull off the overtake, but Josh went wide onto the marbles and spun. The next lap, I led but Josh popped a tyre and spun, giving me the overall win.

Of course, Josh and Beau are much, much better drivers than me and have gone onto bigger and better things, but I have a fond memory of that day when David managed to get lucky against Goliath....of course after that event I didn't even manage to qualify in the top 16 of any drift event!

JDMST: How long do you plan on keeping the car?
This car's a keeper. Not only is it great to drive, it's also a rolling reminder of all the great times I've had in Japan. I've gone to Japan at least once a year for many years, and almost all of the parts were bought overseas, usually after trekking across half of the country looking for some obscure MX5 tuner. So all the bits on the car remind me of all the great trips and wonderful people I've met in Japan, and to me they give the car a soul. So I will never ever sell it, it's a rare combination...a finished project that actually met my expectations when it was done! And I'll probably never own another car with quite so many JDM bits on it.

When you think about it, there really isn't anything like the 1st gen MX5 anymore. The new one is a bigger, heavier car with power-everything and the closest you get to such a stripped-down driving experience nowadays is a Lotus Elise.

So yeah, they don't make them like this anymore. When you see a 1st Gen MX5 sitting on the road, there's just something about them that just looks....right.

JDMST: Did you always plan for your car to turn out the way it has?
Like most, when I bought it, I intended to keep it stock! So much for that idea...it started with just an intake, then I got an exhaust, then a cat, the headers, and then I bought my first copy of Hyper Rev, started drooling and have never looked back!

JDMST: What was your inspiration behind building your MX-5 and how do you feel it's turned out?
I fell in love with the neo-retro JDM style which is quite unique to Japan (and quite unique to the 1st generation MX5 only). And so hatched a plan to build a car that looked like it jumped out of the pages of Road&Ster, the JDM MX5 tuner magazine. The look is like a classic 1960's tarmac racer, functional and tough, but with a modern edge that only the Japanese can pull off. The wheels, stance, mirrors, interior, bodykit, it's all a very strict formula and it's easy to overdo it if you add too much, and it's easy to fall into the trap of adding a mod which jars with the character of the car. But after 4yrs I think the car's where I want it to be.

JDMST: So what are your next moves then Babs?!
The car's a finished project, and I'm focussing on a new project now. But I have a JDM ecu to try dynoing, and I might paint the windscreen frame and hardtop black for that NSX-R look. And one day when I win Lotto I'll get quad throttles for that induction bark...

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