Stripy Miata

Stripy Miata

This is a site to showcase the stripes I added to my Eunos Roadster in April 2000 and to give some help if you fancy doing it yourself.

I first got the idea for putting stripes on the car after seeing Simon Knapton's car on the web, although it took me about 2 years to pluck up enough courage to do it. Andrew Thompson, the Northern Ireland MX5 Club regional orginiser sent me an E-mail of a Japanese Roadster with black stripes, it looked so good I thought I'd go for it.

How to Stripe a car!

Step 1 - Chose Your Colour & Width.

This is where Keith Tanner's Site is invaluable. There he has a Stripe Machine where you can try different colours and an archive of striped cars from all over the world. The norm is 8" wide stripes, but I felt 6" wide was about right for me. I also have two narrow stripes going down either side, which is a very nice touch. It was the guy who fitted the stripes to my car's idea, so all kudos to him.

Step 2 - Buying The Stripes

The stripes are 3M Controltac & it took about 4 metres to do my car. The stuff is readily available at most vehicle graphics companies or you can buy a kit at MRoad. The cost averages out at about £40.

Step 3 Applying The Stripes

I'm afraid I was a bit of a coward here so Paul from the excellent Car Care Centre Speedshop in Lisburn fitted them for me. He basically said it was a complete bugger to do and never wants to see stripes again :) It took him 7 hours, but he is a bit of a perfectionist. Simon Knapton did it himself in 5 hours, but he also said it's very hard work. There is a guide to doing it at Keith Tanner's Site supplied by Dan Pedroza of MRoad.

5) Think about what to do with the number plate.

As you can see, the car wouldn't look right with the number plate back on. So I decided to leave it off, which was fine until I got nicked by Constable Currie of Lisburn RUC. Obviously he had nothing better to do like catch real criminals. Anyhow, Robin Madden came up with a solution based on the old Lotus Elan's of the 60's. I bought plastic letters from a Belfast license plate retailer and stuck them to the front grill. You can have a look at the results here.

As for the rear of the car, I finished it off by putting a KG Works Miata Script brake light cover on as you can see below. I can really recommend this modification, you can see a close up of it and details of how to order one by visiting Donutz.

6) That's all folks :)

Well, I hope this has been helpful if you're thinking of going to the Stripy Side. Any questions? Feel free to E-mail me.

If you want to see the worlds only Tortoiseshell Miata, click here

Finally, a big thank you to Paul Clarke, Keith Tanner, Simon Knapton, Andy Thompson &