mx5/led zep 1 review...

my thoughts...apologies if your not a led zep fan..and shame on you if your not....but those of ya who are hopefully know what i mean....

led zeppelin....behemoths of rock, possibly the greatest rock band of all time.....think of the pomp and splendour of achilles last stand or kashmir belting out...perfectly produced, note perfect, power riffs strained thru cut glass..a huge, overwhelming, overproduced wall of perfect noise.....but it wasnt always like this..go listen to led zeppelin's first, self titled album, enjoy the stripped down back to basics essential blues/rock sound those guys belted out in the late sixties... no room for error, no safety net..just pared to the bone perfection. four guys living the dream before the dream started living them. the urgency, the vitality, the spark..its all there on led zeppelin 1..the band became slowly more powerful, more ponderous, hell, maybe more perfect too some, over time..eventually they were derided as dinosaurs of rock and when the backbone of the band primal, thumping beat, jon bonham, died, the ride was over.....

....for me, an early mx5 is bare essentials motoring. nothing to dillute the intimate experience of driving the car. no power steering, no heavy air con units, no heavy power hood, no electric windows. this is led zeppelin before they became older, before they had multi million dollar recording facilities, this is the simple, raw, raucous enjoyment you get from listening to led zeppelin 1...and its all the better for it. this car may be perceived as a cheap japanese facsimilie of a trad brit sportscar...but its one of those rare occurences....this tribute band is better than the original!!

the rorty 1.8 twin cam engine is happy to lug you around in a higher gear when you just wanna loaf aimlessley around - think the lazy licks of ' i cant quit you baby' - as you cruise along with one hand on the wheel, sun on your face...laid back but with the feeling of raw, raunchy rock n roll excitment not to far below the surface...but its equally happy to make the rev counter needle race to the war paint in every gear as you conduct a high energy, high speed, note perfect gasoline fueled symphony ..think 'communication breakdown' here..ten tenths thrills with no extra padding.

the driving position is just about spot on. sure you sit close to the wheel, but you have to. the car is a surprisingly physical wee thing to drive, making a mockery of its 'hairdresser' image. the gearchange is gorgeous. short throw snickety snick, it has the feel of a perfectly engineered rifle bolt and none of the usual over engineered japlite feel. this isnt a car that drives you just like so many moderns, this is an old fashioned experience..you have to drive this car. ..you are an integral cog in this machine, not a computer chip..not a one driver fits all automonon, you are a mechanical piece of the car and you are essential to its progress.

find a road you know and put the foot down half and inch...and the car goes half an inch faster....turn the wheel a half turn and the car feels like its turned, well, a half turn..inch perfect..every time.....no slop, no unfaithfulness, but neither does it have the nervy feel of a mk1 civic type r or the like. the steering is meaty rather than heavy and conveys a feeling of economy of motion, it feels both lean and spare, yet substantial and implicitly trustworthy..a difficult trick to pull off..it turns in just so and communicates where the wheels are going and where they wanna go..the car rides very well on its standard suspension..sure, some might want lower, stiffer suspension, but, just like led zeppelin, im a wee bit older, and a wee bit wiser than i used to be, so il stick with the standard springs!!..the little mazda zips down the road with a raw, grity realism..this car feels like an old, well loved vinyl album...sure a cd might play better, an mp3 track might be more easily available in todays world , but give the wee roadster its head and you will remember that warm feeling of satisfaction as the needle hits the groove..its a live action experience in a cgi world...

it is a feel good car, and not just because its a soft top, though the sensation of driving is heightened by your close proximity to the elements with the top down..and its a sin NOT to put the top down, cos it takes, oh, about a minute to do so..and the same again to put it back up. power hoods..pah..cars like this make you realise its what you dont need in a car that puts a smile on your face, not what you think you do need..an overworked cliche here, but cars like this can prove that less can be more. you smile when you drive an mx5, and you dont feel that other road users are jealous of you in the same way they would be if you were driving a bmw convertible or the like. its a wee unthreatning car, it provokes smiles and warmth from other drivers, and its only other owners or real enthusiaists that know that beneath the carefully constructed imagery is a real, dedicated sportscar in the traditional sense of the word...

the secret of led zeppelin was that they were, in the words of jimmy page, tight but loose.....that description suits the mx5 perfectly. it feels tight, planted, everything feels like its gonna keep on keepin on....but it feels like when you wanna tie the dog loose, when you wanna let your hair down, its happy to indulge in the on the road equivelant of one of jimmy's fantastic solos, its happy to trip up and down the tarmac fretboard, happy to hit all the high notes and let you indulge in the big riffs anytime you want..tight, but loose....the mx5 is bare essentials, no frills rock n roll.....a true sportscar on a budget, and like listening to led zep turned up to eleven, it sometimes leaves me feeling deafened, but never short changed....

Not sure about the Led Zep stuff as I've not heard to much off theirs, but the MX5 is a nice little no frills car. Last summer I drove an original one from Sheffield to Stoke and back on some nice A and B roads. Car had had the rear lowered which spoiled the ride and handling and became a bit annoying (kept hitting the bump stops)/uncomfortable. I was impressed until I then drove my Bertie again that evening. The 105 GT (and probably the 105 spider) might lack the reliability or rust resistance of an MX5 and the soft top in the GTs case, but in my opinion are more than a match in most other areas, LOOKS, gearbox, handling, and definately engine

Nice angle on the review, I like it

I suppose you knew that on the first LZ album, Jimmy Page used his Telecaster throughout (mainly combined witha leslie speaker by and large) as opposed to his synonymous Les Paul? Personally I dont like Telecasters, having tried them I prefer Gibson solid bodied kit.

Love the take on the two; cant agree with you about LZ being derided until their latter reformation, which should not have happened. I'll still buy the dvd though!

derided by the uninitiated....for me, the greatest rock band..ever, from the beginning to the end....around the late seventies, the upcoming punk bands derided led zep, floyd etc..etc..as old hat dinosaurs, conveniently forgetting that ever generation has its 'punks'...and the 'punks' in the late sixties/early seventies were kicking out against the beatles and stones and listening to led zep and saabath etc....

...and the reunion wasnt meant to be too bad at all..better than the bloody live aid gig....now THAT was a shambles....

Led Zep, the BBC Sessions, woohoo! Now that's an awesome document of their early days from the 60's.

"Tight but loose", good tagline for the MX-5 as well. I wish I'd bought one instead of my bella, but the lack of two seats in the back and the tiny boot made the MX-5 an impractical choice. Still, for a Japanese roadster to carry the spirit of Triumphs from times gone by, it's a helluva thing...

i wouldnt compare the mx-5 to led zep, led zep were original and groundbreaking, the mx-5 is a modern copy of the lotus elan, having the adding bonus of working all the time and not breaking down or rusting.

Originally Posted by jabberwocky

i wouldnt compare the mx-5 to led zep, led zep were original and groundbreaking, the mx-5 is a modern copy of the lotus elan, having the adding bonus of working all the time and not breaking down or rusting.

I'd say at the time, Led Zeppelin were a great band, but I think a lot of their tunes are pure copy-cat, especially where they had the cheek not to credit the original composer.. A lot of their stuff is copied off Willie Dixon and other 50's blues artists, a lot of riffs came from the Yardbirds (as did Jimmy Page), they blatantly pinched the riff to Stairway to Heaven from Spirit's Taurus, and managed to morph the Small Faces' tune 'You Need Lovin' into their 'Whole Lotta Love'..

However I will say Led Zep mostly improved on the songs they copied, just as some might say the MX-5 is an improvement on the Lotus Elan..

someone on another site made an interesting ppoint re:mx5....the badge, although it certainlty hasnt harmed these cars huge international sales or almost universal acclaim, probably did harm its 'image' and desireability amongst more traditional petrolheads....

these days tho, many seem to be bought as weekend playthings or track cars by just the sort of people who shunned 'em when they were new....

if the mx5 had been produced by fiat or alfa, would it have been such a big seller???.....i doubt it, regardless of how good it is.....but it may have had the very people who never bought it waxing lyrical about the car from the get go....

Led Zep greatest rock band ever??...Phooey

I was going to say that led Zep One was the only record of theirs I have. It is their best by a mile, and the only heavy rock LP that will ever get through my doors.

..Then on double checking..and for reasons I've never quite figured out, my kids bought me the Led Zeppelin Live DVDs, and then they bought me the two CD "very best of Led Zep"

So i confess to quite liking LZ 2, three i didn't like, and in our group at school we used to do 'Stairway to Heaven' from 4..way back in 1971/2..so its a bloody long time ago...then I couldn't be bothered any more.

Either way, the early stuff was the best music, and has stood the test of time. The latter stuff sounds lazy and over indulgent and a bit dirgy, the way many groups went, and laid the foundations for punk rock to tell then all to p&ss off.

Is the MX5 going the same way...I liked the first and the current incarnations of MX5. The middle one I'm not so sure about, even though its a great little car.

AlfaLincs
P.S. If you stood an MX5 next to a Lotus Elan (original) it would dwarf it. The original Elan was a flawed Gem, only made perfect when Diana Rigg was driving (sigh).

MY favourite MX-5 is the MkII. I've drove the MkI 1.6 and MkII 1.8 and the second one knocks the socks off the former

Wonder what the new one would be like? I don't like its new 'face', but the new rear end looks lovely

led zeppelin 3 is my favourite album..ever..i think.......people are always so shocked when they hear it in my car and ask who it is..perception of led zep by many is loud, crashing blues rock....the intricate, overlaid instrumentals in, say, gallows pole, shows what outstanding musicians they were.....

Originally Posted by Pud237

MY favourite MX-5 is the MkII. I've drove the MkI 1.6 and MkII 1.8 and the second one knocks the socks off the former

Wonder what the new one would be like? I don't like its new 'face', but the new rear end looks lovely

mine is a mk1 1.8..so maybe best of both worlds..purer styling with the 128hp engine.....i think the mk2 1.8 was yet more powerful, but probably had more weight to heft around.....

Originally Posted by biggbn

mine is a mk1 1.8..so maybe best of both worlds..purer styling with the 128hp engine.....i think the mk2 1.8 was yet more powerful, but probably had more weight to heft around.....

I think the performance of the 1.8 in MkI and MkII is the same, so if the MkII is substantially heavier it must have a bit more poke too.

But I don't think it is all that heavier, isn't it just a 'facelift' and not a whole new car?

By the way, my favourite Zep song is "The Rain Song" - not exactly heavy metal is it?!

probably depends on what you spec...most mk2s seem to have more creature comforts...my ol mk1 has manual windows, manual roof, no a/c and no power steering....which must all save a few lbs......which i immediately negate by plonking my lardy ass in the drivers seat...c'est la vie.....

The mkII I had out had leccy windows, a cd player and power steering but no leccy roof or air con..

TBH I think electric windows at the front, power steering and remote central locking are must haves for me. I don't know if I could live with a car without them..

whereas i have arms and opposeable thumbs......

I'm just a lazy get

Zeppelin are very, very good, like their stuff i also used to be into Deep Purple, the Rolling Stones Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath too ..moved on to AC/DC and a few other kick ass bands before mellowing slightly and drifting into Stone Roses, Shack and Oasis and many other similar bands. But i also like some Country and Western, Classical, African Music, Latin Music, Electronica, dance/trance, proper Rythem and Blues, a sprinkling of Jazz, ...well i actually like quite a lot of music come to think of it You could say i have an eclectic taste..as for the mini mazdas ...yeah they are quite cute but wouldnt have one myself ...our GTV is the smallest id go ...just dont feel comfortable in little cars .....