It's coughing and wheezing, it's scarred, it leaks oil like a colander, but it's still ticking (love that lifter noise) at 242,000 miles. My '92 (bought in '95 with 58k on the clock) has served me well, and I think that, after a quarter million, I'm going to *sigh* retire it to second-car status so that I can tinker more with it.
To address those questions that come up every year about the Miata and winter roads... Last week, North Carolina got hit with a freakishly intense snowstorm. Due to some poor planning on my part, I drove home as it was getting really bad. Tires are all-season (VISA 50G HRs), but not really worth much in snow. Temp was around 30, snow was falling hard, and the roads were slushy to snowy, with some places where the snow was packing, and some places where it was starting to freeze hard. With slow, steady control, I made it through. Only had one heart-stopper - coming up a hill, the back started to come out; I was doing about 40. I corrected, it slid the other way, I corrected...I wagged back and forth four times, not quite lock-to-lock, but close... and I pulled it out, thust demonstrating why weight distribution is so critical in the snow. If I had put 100lbs of weight in the trunk, I might have had better traction, but I might not have been able to catch the back as it came around.
Oh, and hi again everyone.