Miata Mailing List: October 1994, Message #30
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   From: Doug Hagerman 
Subject: wiring error, and fly-off handbrake
   Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 16:17:39 -0400

Hello Miata-eers.

I noticed yesterday that there's a MISTAKE IN MY MIATA!!! It's a '93,
and what I found is this: If I open my door, the ring around the cigarette
lighter glows a nice green color. When I close the door, the glow goes
away. BUT, when I turn on the headlights, while all the panel lights
turn on correctly, the ring DOESN'T GLOW! MISTAKE!

Not that I smoke or anything, but what's going on here? How are you
supposed to find the cigarette lighter in the dark?

Also, I was reading an old car book ("The MG Story", actually, which
is from around 1970 and is pretty marginal, but interesting anyway) and
was reminded of the "fly-off handbrake". What it is is a handbrake which
works opposite of how the Miata one does: You have to push in the button
on the end to get it to lock, and to release it you just pull it up
without pushing the button. The idea is that if you need to make a
"handbrake turn", you can just yank on the handle (without pushing the
button) to apply the rear brakes. When you let go the brake "flies off",
thus the name. Perhaps an ingenious inventor could come up with a modification
to the Miata brake handle mechanism to make it work this way. Then
the Miata would have this feature that was present on many old English
cars, all the way up to the Triumph TRs, even...

Doug.