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Miatas, simply put, are chick cars. A tiny chassis with cute features and a convertible top to let your hair blow in the wind as you cruise to the beach are its defining characteristics. But this particular little MX-5 we discovered on Autoblog is anything but “cute” – sporting an all-aluminum 5.3 L33 swap, a Tremec six-speed, and a CTS-V positraction rear end. The car was built by owner Keith Tanner to compete in Targa Newfoundland, and was treated to an LS swap by Flyin’ Miata, after Tanner quickly realized that the car’s weak stock 4-cylinder just wouldn’t cut it on the Targa course.
Fortunately, many of those same tiny aspects that make the Miata so cute to girls can be exploited to turn these cars in to absolute track beasts – such as extremely light weight. Tanner and his crew took all of the best and lightest components from each generation of MX-5, and mixed them in with many aftermarket suspension and brake components, to help this Miata harness all 400 horsepower that the L33 produces. The final product is an incredibly balanced track star, that weighs just 200 pounds more than a stock Miata, and still has a near perfect 52/48 weight distribution.
Tanner and his wife were in a position to win the Open Class of this year’s Targa, but a faulty Mazda electrical relay ultimately let them down in the final stages of the race, leaving them with a still respectable 3rd place finish. We can’t wait to see what this little bugger can do with some GM relays installed…
