I had a 1991 Mazda Miata. My dad bought it new and daily drove it for years, but eventually decided to get something more practical and bought an E36 328i sedan. (That idea didn't last too long, as the 328i was followed by a 6spd G35 coupe, which was then followed by his current DD, an '07 S2000.)
Anyway, the Miata mostly sat for a few years. I did a lot of my practice driving in it, since for a few years it was the only manual in the household. It was going to be my first car when I got my license, and we had the faded red paint resprayed in a Porsche-esque gunmetal, a new top put on, and a bunch of other tweaks and updates to make it a nice car.
It would've worked out great, except I fell under the negative influence of GT and Initial D. I lived in the hills, and a week before I was going to get my license, in the fall of '03, I decided it wouldn't be any harm to take the car for a spin on one of the twisty roads near my house - after all, I didn't even have to go out onto a street with traffic lights or anything.
As a brand new driver, I was most certainly not prepared to handle oversteer, especially when it quickly turned into understeer. The mark in the retaining wall next to the road that I left is still there. The car was just about totalled, but it wasn't completely destroyed, and the next owner turned it into some sort of heavily modified custom abomination with entirely new front and rear ends and bright metallic orange paint.
I, meanwhile, eventually got the world's rattiest 190E. 2.3, auto, probably had about 60HP left, dark blue and with windows that didn't go down, in the middle of summer. Exterior trim was held on with wood screws. I would've had no car whatsoever, but LA is not a city you can get around without driving, and my parents were sick of shuttling me around after 18 years. That car had its own stories, but wasn't mine for all that long, as it decided to give up the ghost and blew its heater core sky high while waiting in line to park at the first D1 Grand Prix. It got me around long enough that when it died, I had enough to buy my 240SX, though.
