A 2007 Mazda Miata draped in hand-formed bodywork meant to evoke classic Aston Martins is looking for a new owner on Bring A Trailer. Beneath those custom panels sits an entirely stock NC Miata: 166 horsepower, 140 pound-feet of torque, and a six-speed automatic. The current seller even added Aston Martin badges, which is a choice.
The build is the work of Jim Simpson of Simpson Design, a shop that specializes in crafting custom-bodied Miatas inspired by mid-century exotics. Simpson’s portfolio shows genuine craftsmanship — the panel gaps are tight, the surfaces are smooth, and the paint presents well. The man knows his way around fiberglass and filler.
But knowing how to build something and knowing what to build are two very different skills.
Classic Aston Martins — the DB4, DB5, DB6 — are among the most perfectly proportioned automobiles ever penned. Their beauty comes from long, flowing body lines that arc gracefully from nose to tail, every curve resolving into the next with the inevitability of a well-written sentence. Grafting that language onto the stubby proportions of an NC Miata is like trying to fit a sonnet into a limerick.
The front looks slightly pinched. The rear looks slightly confused. The profile can’t decide whether it wants to be lithe or compact, because it’s physically impossible for it to be both. The whole thing lives in that uncomfortable space where you can tell exactly what it’s reaching for and exactly how far short it falls.
Then there’s the interior, which compounds the identity crisis. A wood-rimmed Nardi steering wheel sits in front of a modern Mazda instrument cluster. Low-back vinyl bucket seats replace the originals, and wood appliques have been applied to surfaces that were clearly designed for plastic. An Aston Martin horn button centers the whole tableau, a finishing touch that reads less like homage and more like costume jewelry.
More troubling than aesthetics is what was removed to achieve them. The NC Miata’s factory roll hoops are gone. So are the head restraints and the driver’s airbag. The entire premise of a modern-bones, vintage-skin build is that you get old-world charm wrapped around new-world protection. Deleting the safety equipment defeats the purpose so thoroughly it’s hard to understand why anyone bothered with the modern platform in the first place.
And about that platform — 166 horsepower through a slushbox automatic is perfectly adequate for a Miata doing Miata things. It is not adequate for a car that wears Aston Martin wings on its nose and asks to be taken seriously as something exotic. A turbo kit, a manual swap, something to give the driving experience even a whisper of the drama that the bodywork is trying so hard to project. But no. It’s bone stock underneath.
Simpson Design clearly has talent. The execution of the bodywork itself is impressive by any custom-build standard. The problem is that some proportions are sacred, and some cars resist impersonation. A Miata can be a lot of wonderful things — one of the great driver’s cars of the modern era, an accessible gateway to motorsport, a perfectly balanced roadster that punches miles above its price. What it cannot be is an Aston Martin.
The auction is live. Someone will buy this. Someone always does. But they’ll be driving a Miata in an Aston Martin costume, and every DB5 they pass will remind them of the difference between wearing the suit and filling it out.
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