More than a few of us on the Inside Line staff have a jones for a built first-gen Miata. We keep thinking about making one a project car/used long-termer, sort of like we did with the Ferrari 308, the E46 M3 and the Evo GSR all rolled into one. Only the Miata is dirt cheap. If you do much of the work yourself and live without a few luxuries, total cost to build one into a little Asian Cobra could be well under $10,000 (including the car with hardtop).

The gang at Mike Burlas Design Inc. (www.mikeburlas.com) out of Rialto, CA understand what I'm talking about. They built this clean and simple wide body Miata I came crossways today at the SEMA show. It's powered by a turbo rotary engine, wears a fastback-style carbon roof and it sits just like it should. That, my friends, is stance. Mike, just lose the big rear wing and the car is right on.

And so now my Miata jones is like really off the chart. Thanks, Mike.

So what do you think? Should we do it?