I think Ben’s Roadster is cool as hell so decided to use this for my 1st feature on the site.

This little roadster was bought basically standard back 9 months ago with full service history to 62k miles. His first main modification was to fit HSD coilovers and start slamming it, firstly it was slammed on a set of 3SDM deep dish wheels 15″x8J ET15 but these just didnt sit right so soon changed to a set of XXR 513 15″x8J ET0. But with the low offset the lows were not achievable, “sat perfect for what I was after but was rubbing my arch stupidly” said Ben, so out came the arch roller and after pushing the and flaring the arches the car was back on the floor. It might not be the lowest 5 going around but it still sits amazingly well.

In-between the wheel whoring Ben decided to start styling up the roadster to make it personal and perfect for him. On the outside he started with a Garage Vary Splitter on the front to make it look more aggressive, then came the side diffusers and spoilers. He got 2 spoilers, 1 for the hardtop and a KG Works Rear Spoiler for the boot lid, he chose the KG spoiler as he was “not a fan of the ‘ducktail’ style spoiler, its just personal preference”. And to finish it off he decided to change the wing mirrors to something different, TVR mirrors to be precise, Ben explains “I fancied some retro looking wing mirrors so I started net hunting and found some that where actually for a tvr but worked and fitted fine”.

Then came some changes inside the car, and to style this he decided to carry on with what was already there, a set of re-trimmed black leather seats which were done back in 2008 before he bought the car and are still in amazing condition. So to go with this he decided to have his door cards re-trimmed but then decided to go with a red theme and put red stitching in them. After this he decided he wanted to stiffen the back end of the car up so got a custom 4 point roll cage which worked really well and looks cool as hell. To finish it off he changed the handbrake and gear knob and surrounds and then got a deep dish steering wheel.

Finally he decided to do a little bit to the engine starting with the exhaust as he wanted “a nice loud raspy Jap sound”, so he got a Japspeed Stainless Manifold and Stainless Downside. He also got the car de-cat’d and a Custom exhaust made, but because of how Ben wanted the exhaust he had to customise the rear bumper, “how I wanted my can mounted I had to cut my rear bumper about 5inches”, as it was angled facing the drivers side so he could sit back and enjoy the noise. For performance he also added an Red K&N Typhoon, which was originally for a mk2 mx-5 but he got it to fit the Standard MAF on the MK1, and to finish off the handling he decided to get a Cusco Front Strut Brace and then finally the look of the engine bay was finished with a Red Silicone hose kit and D1 Spec Oil Catch Can.

While on the location we did a little video shoot of the car, Enjoy.

MDB Images Presents: Ben’s Mazda MX5 from Mathew Bedworth on Vimeo.

Thank you for reading my fist online feature. If you want a shoot or to be featured on here then please contact me.