Where are you and your Miata?

Chris R. you're #50 and #2 from VA.

Thanks,
Chris
99BBB

"Chris Rennix" > wrote in message news:bmiata8->
Williamsburg, VA
>
> McRenn8

Thanks Harry. Looks interesting! Thanks for the peak!

Chris
99BBB

> wrote in message
...
> Carlux is a village of 650 souls in the departement of the Dordogne,
> in the southwest of France, about 150 kms east of Bordeaux and the
> same distance north of Toulouse. Ask Google Earth for Carlux, France
> and you'll see the village only partly obscured by cloud. You'll
> notice there are few striaght roads.
> Twilight Blue, 1999,NB, 1.6l
>
> On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 19:00:31 -0600, "Chris D'Agnolo"
> > wrote:
>
>>1st from France! Harry, which is the city / town? And is that a state /
>>Province?
>>Help!
>>
>>Thanks for jumping in,
>>Chris
>>99BBB
>>
>

Lanny Chambers wrote:
> In article >,
> "Richard Phillips" > wrote:
>
>> Is stick-shift the norm for sports cars over there, or just Miatas in
>> particular?
>
> I'm just judging by what I hear in traffic, but my guess is that Miatas,
> Porsches, and Z3/4s are overwhelmingly manuals, while domestics
> (Corvette, Solstice, Sky) tend to be automatics. The sedans that some
> call "sports cars" (Mustang, etc.) are almost invariably automatics.
> Many U.S. and Japanese models are not even available with manual
> transmissions.
>
> We now have two generations of drivers who never learned to use a clutch.

After my oldest had learned to drive - in an automatic - I insisted
she learned to drive a manual. At first, she was excited about the
chance to drive my '02 SE, but soon complained it was too much work,
too stressful, etc. I told her that her driving training wasn't
complete until she could drive a manual.

I made her spend 15-20 minutes once a week driving my MX-5 in a
large empty parking lot, but her heart wasn't in it. Eventually, I let
her take a break.

A few months later, she asks if she can practice driving the MX-5.
I said, sure, and she took off down the street. She didn't come
back for nearly an hour, with a huge smile.

The next day, she asked if she could drive it again. She was gone
for nearly 90 minutes!

Eventually we bought a Mazda 3, and she was the envy of more than a
few of her friends - because her car had a manual transmission and
she knew how to use the clutch. Amazing!

Dana

Chris is actually #3 in Virginia. My reply to Larry (pltrgyst) was rather
ambiguous when I wrote I might live down the street from him. He and I are
both in Alexandria, Virginia.
--
Ken Lyons '97 Brilliant Black/'90 Classic Red
Inside the Beltway
[Remove the first two digits to reply]

"Chris D'Agnolo" > wrote
> Chris R. you're #50 and #2 from VA.
>
> Thanks,
> Chris
> 99BBB
>
> "Chris Rennix" > wrote in message news:bmiata8->
> Williamsburg, VA
>>
>> McRenn8
>
>

On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 13:21:17 +0100, wrote:

>Carlux is a village of 650 souls in the departement of the Dordogne,
>in the southwest of France, about 150 kms east of Bordeaux and the
>same distance north of Toulouse.

You mean ~20 km from Rocamadour and 65km north of Cahors? Some people have all
the luck! 8

-- Larry (drinking a Cahors as he types...)

On Nov 16, 6:47 pm, Bruno > wrote:
> Chris D'Agnolo wrote:
> > Scary to think if the dollar still had any value, eh? Thanks for jumping in
> > Bruno, I couldn't remember what country you were in. I will google your
> > exact location! Bruno, it would literally make you sick to see how cheap 2nd
> > hand miatas sell for here. Since they're bulletproof, wouldn't that be a
> > great business venture to go thru and freshen old miata's for export to
> > countries like yours? Maybe I'm missing the point, I guess your taxman would
> > still be the big winner, eh?
>
> Well like the saying goes there is no avoiding death or taxes :-)
>
> The cheap dollar does make importing more interesting but it does not
> change the overall picture much.
>
> If you import a 2nd hand car to Denmark as rule of you will have to pay
> 65% of what the normal price a car like it would bring. So the math for
> importing a US car looks something like this:
>
> 1999 Miata $9000 (seems to be the typical price)
> Shipping $2000 (Maybe a little cheaper or little more expensive)
> Car tax $21700 (A rough estimate)
> -------------------------------------
> Total $32700
>
> It may be that it can be done a little cheaper but all in all the
> difference is not big enough.
>
> There may however be more than just saving some $ which makes importing
> a US car to Europe interesting. There is the whole "No rust in
> California cars" but that is not so much an argument with the Miata
> since many people over here put the car in storage in the winter and
> only really run the car when the sun is shining.
>
> A more exciting argument and one that has me considering actually doing
> it someday is that the Mazdaspeed version is not sold in Europe. I know
> some guy in Norway has one but that's he only Mazdaspeed Miata I know of
> over here so it could be fun to get one. However it may not be trivial
> to get the car on the road since a EU approval is not likely to exist.
> And what the car tax will be is a big guess but if I can find the money
> I may try for it some day.
>
> Kind regards
> Bruno

Hi Bruno,

The November 26, 2007 edition of TIME magazine has an interesting
article on "Denmark's Difference: High taxes, a welfare state, strong
unions, how an unlikely formula delivers for the Danes." Does it
deliver for you? Just a question from an American curious about
Denmark's economic success.

Abyss (Desordre)
92 Mariner Blue Miata
Coos Bay, Oregon

Driving along the coast on highway 101 in the fog and loving it.

Chris D'Agnolo wrote:
> Well, Pat (PWS) has mentioned a couple of times that only a small handful of
> folks hang out on this group these days. While I'm not usually inclined to
> try to prove him wrong, on this particular issue, I would love to. Would
> everyone who see's this message, please reply with CITY, STATE (and COUNTRY
> / PROVINCE if outside the USofA)? I'd like to compile the info and post it
> here for everyone to see. Hopefully the high volume posters (you know who
> you are!) along with the occasional posters and even the "just lurking
> around" crowd will reply. I'm thinking this could be not only fun but
> educational in some way (could it make some of us American actually look at
> the globe ;-) It could happen!
>
> I'll start it by throwing Sugar Land, TX (sw Houston) into the ring. Come
> on, let's see how far and wide our conversations go!

Swindon, England. Technically it's an MX-5, because the Miata name was
only used in North America.

abyss wrote:
> Hi Bruno,
>
> The November 26, 2007 edition of TIME magazine has an interesting
> article on "Denmark's Difference: High taxes, a welfare state, strong
> unions, how an unlikely formula delivers for the Danes." Does it
> deliver for you? Just a question from an American curious about
> Denmark's economic success.
>
Does it deliver for me? Well - the short answer is a big YES!

But let me elaborate a bit sine nothing is perfect. let me try and paint
a quick picture of my life as a Dane so you have an idea of my basis for
answering the question.

I'm 37, work in IT, single (more or less), live in a 1 bedroom
apartment(aprox 800 sqfeet) of which I own about 30% (the credit company
the rest) and then I drive a Miata. My annual income is slightly above
average for my age group, so all in all I think I'm pretty
representative for a semi-young male Dane (except the car).

As a car nut I do wish that our record high car taxes* was lower but on
the other hand it's not like we need more cars as they are everywhere
and all in all I'm fine with paying my taxes.

It may be that Denmark is sort of a world record holder when it comes to
taxes but I think the picture is not that simple. Sure our high taxes
mean that everybody pay to a lot of stuff whether they like it or not
and somethings I might like to support or perhaps just see done
differently but all in all it is a good system.

I have talked about the tax subject with people from the US before and
when doing the math it often turns out an average budget is not very
different. We pay high taxes but it means we don't need to:

- Save up to pay for education for our children.
- Pay for medical insurance.
- Pay unemployment insurance.
- Run a pension plan

And so on.

Sure if you want extra insurance, a higher pension and so you can get it
and if so there is often a tax deduction covering part of the cost.
But even the standard health service is of a very high standard, welfare
will never run out, education is free and students living away from
home (they almost all do once past 18) get aprox $800 a month from the
state and there are cheap student loans...

I'm not sure the article you refer to is this one:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...684528,00.html

But if so there are a couple minor of details which are wrong :-)

1. We have not been a small nation for a 1000 years. Denmark in fact is
not just the main areas but both Greenland and the Faeroe Islands are
part of the Danish nation and back in time Norway, a nice chunk of
Sweden, a bite of Germany, a part of England and even the Virgin Islands
(which we sold to you guys in 1917 for some $25 million).

2. The unemployment check one can get for up to four years (after which
one goes on flexible pay out which you can not get if you own real
estate or any other valuables) is not 90%. It was originaly meant to be
90% for someone with a average wage but it has not been regulated and
it's maximum of about $800 a week before tax so it only reaches 90% for
those with absolute minimum wages.

All in all I think we have it pretty easy. We have more oil than we
need, a very well functioning democracy (85-90% of all over 18 vote in
national elections), low crimerate, no corruption, no
earthquakes/volcano's/tornado's/hurricanes and not even any really
dangerous animals.

I hope I somehow answered you question. Feel free to ask more if needed.

Kind regards
Bruno


*Apart from the car tax which basically means buy one pay for three
there are more ways a car owner has to pay for the privilege. There is a
yearly environment tax which depends on the models mileage (for a Miata
like mine it's US$ 786) and there is gas taxes causing a gallon to come
in at aprox. $7.20.

Thanks Bruno, it's nice to get info first hand. It really does sound like a
system that works for you guys. I wish folks here (USA) were more open
minded on topics like this but, it is what it is.

Thanks again,
Chris
99BBB

OK Ken, I'll correct that. I had you down for Washington DC. Now that's open
(0).

Thanks for the clarification,
Chris
99BBB

"Ken Lyons" > wrote in message
news:ApO%i.414$oL5.400@trnddc05...
> Chris is actually #3 in Virginia. My reply to Larry (pltrgyst) was rather
> ambiguous when I wrote I might live down the street from him. He and I are
> both in Alexandria, Virginia.
> --
> Ken Lyons '97 Brilliant Black/'90 Classic Red
> Inside the Beltway
> [Remove the first two digits to reply]
>
> "Chris D'Agnolo" > wrote
>> Chris R. you're #50 and #2 from VA.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Chris
>> 99BBB
>>
>> "Chris Rennix" > wrote in message news:bmiata8->
>> Williamsburg, VA
>>>
>>> McRenn8
>>
>>
>
>