It's officially spring, I have proof . . .

In reply to kazoospec :

Shinsen.

In reply to NickD :

Yeah.  2003 Shinsen, with the AP2 appearance package.  I'm the second owner.  Probably wouldn't have paid the extra for the package if I was the original buyer, but I love the look of the Titanium with the blue top.  Same for the AP2 package, probably wouldn't have sprung the extra coin for it myself, but it's grown on me.

It's still in the garage, that's not proof of spring. 

captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:

It's still in the garage, that's not proof of spring. 

Hahaha, true.  But it's also not in storage with a car cover on it, and I took the "long way home", so I'm calling it good.

But the top is up.  6 more weeks of boredom.

Congrats! Shinsen is a low profile package, it didn't make a big splash at the time. There are a number of non-MSM late NB variants like that that kinda slipped under the radar.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Yeah, the only thing I don't love about it is the seats.  Well, not actually the seats, but the covers. The car has less than 60K miles on it, rarely, if ever, sits outside and the seat covers are flat out trashed.  I had an upholstery shop look at it to see if they could be salvaged and the owner said "Ahhh yes, mesh over cloth.  Designed for one thing, and one thing only, to look good in the showroom." 

I'm thinking its about time for you all to make some killer FM seat covers.  Failing that, any chance you guys can do one of your Thursday live shows on what sucks and what's decent out of the current crop of covers? 

Remind me, what do they look like?

I don't know what the current crop of covers are, but I've never gone wrong with Katzkin when I've used them. We also have a car that had the center panels replaced with suede by a local upholstery shop. We skinned the seats and brought them in, so all they had to do was some sewing.

Here's our modified set:

I have proof too. 

It's yellow and covering absolutely everything. 

Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:

I have proof too. 

It's yellow and covering absolutely everything. 

 

If you lived in Canada it would be all the frozen dog poop thawing out. Some things I don't miss ;)

In reply to Keith Tanner :

The Shinsen seats are the NB2 "surfboard" seats.  The panels are the same as the still from the video you posted.  The center (the part your seat has in suede) is blue nylon(?) mess over a gray cloth.  The rear panels are a darker gray (believe they are vinyl) and the "sides" are various color blue and gray cloth.  They are honestly too complicated to try to replicate, so I'll probably be looking for some mixture of black and gray or black and dark blue to keep the general look of the seat.  The car is nice, but isn't really "collector grade", so I'm not overly worried about replicating factory stuff.  I'll try to reach out to Katzkins again.  They don't have NB seats on their website, and they didn't respond to some prior emails. 

Found a pic after typing out a written description:

Ah, those. Also used in the cloth Mazdaspeeds of the day IIRC, but in black.

I'd stop by an upholstery shop and see if they can change out the panels you have damaged. If they have the originals, it's not a big step to simply duplicate the panel and sew a new one in. Katzkins definitely has sold NB seat covers in the past, but I believe they prefer to work through resellers. You could contact Dave Denuzzo, the Crazy Red Italian. He's a nut (in a good way) and the site is a throwback to all we used to love about web design 20 years ago, but if he's still in the business he can set you up. Tell him I said hi.

http://www.crazyred.com/pages/seats.html 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Awesome.  Thanks!  Leather seats by "The Crazy Red Italian" sounds like exactly what my Miata needs.

In the South its not spring until the pecan trees start budding leaves.  They always know...

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Man, that website is a time capsule.  I'm not overly optomistic since it hasn't been updated since 2010 and lots of the links are dead, but I emailed their customer service, so we'll see.  Further bulletins as events warrant.   Thanks again!

jharry3 said:

In the South its not spring until the pecan trees start budding leaves.  They always know...

I beg to differ.  The mosquitos have finally come out in force.  The below is one of two citronella torch thingies I have going while I work in the garage, they are 6 feet apart and I'm still getting bit.

In reply to Mr_Asa :

Run a fan in the garage, they hate wind.