Last week, this hilarious and adorable Miata track car and matching trailer combo popped up on my Facebook feed. I loved it so much that I had to share it with the class here. Luckily Austin Robbins, the little convoy’s owner, was kind enough to humor me and provide some photos so we could get a closer look.
This Mia’trailer (Robbins calls it “Miatata”) might be little, but it fits a lot of stuff. Four race wheels with tires (three standing up between the chassis rails, the fourth laying down where the gas tank used to be) all get crammed into the scant space between the trailer’s two wheels. There’s a haul of tools for trackside repairs in there, too. It’s also the only trailer I’ve ever heard of running coilover suspension—fitted in the name of matching the tow car’s ride height. Now that is commitment.
We’ve seen a handful of cars cut down to trailer size over the years, like that one famous NSX and matching half-NSX. But what I particularly liked about Robbins’ project is that his Miata trailer has both the front and back of the original car, which makes it even more amusing. It’s not what I’d call an exceptionally polished project, but it’s a great example of creativity and home garage engineering. Robbins told me that he and his father fix and sell old cars as a hobby, and picked up the donor at a Copart auction. “The donor car was hit so hard on the front [that] it was tweaked at the transmission tunnel, so no road-worthy Miatas were harmed in the making of the trailer,” Robbins explained over email. “I mostly bought it for the parts I could snag but then after I made my money back on parting it out I had a shell where the front couldn’t be saved so cutting the back off seemed fun.”
We got into some more details on what the Miatata’s been up to: “I’ve wanted to build a Miata trailer for a while and had a good ‘reason’ when I was getting ready to go to the Miata Reunion at Sonoma Raceway in November 2024. I’ve seen a few other Miata trailers but I wanted to make sure mine could be functional as a race trailer as well as a cool conversation piece. Like all good projects I opened up Paint and did some rough estimate measurements to figure out how much space I would need to make the angles not look too weird and still try to put a front bumper on the trailer.”
I mean it definitely looks sort of odd—it is a half-length, two-wheel, passenger-cabinless car, after all. If it were yellow it’d kind of look like one of the Minions from Despicable Me (I mean that in the nicest way possible). I really like that it has a front bumper, though—gives it more character.
Robbins reported that his father was a huge help in planning and welding the trailer. Looks like the Miata’s original chassis rails (what’s left of them) make up the primary supporting structure, and it also runs the car’s factory control arms. The doors were cut so that the front bumper could be made to fit. “I don’t know why we would need to, but as it is the front bumper can still be removed from the trailer,” Robbins told me.
The factory lights on the trailer, including the revere lights, all work via a six-point trailer wiring harness.
As for the trailer’s actual on-road performance, Robbins has already put quite a few miles on it. “I took it 12 hours from Utah to California to the Miata Reunion, drove it around the track on a parade lap, then went 12 hours back home while cruising 75 mph and it towed great,” he said.
If you want to see more of Robbins’ Miata and trailer, he’s on Instagram @nyoomianta. And if you’ve got a project of your own to show off, drop me a line!
Seen or made something cool from an unsalvageable car? Contact the author at Andrew.collins@thedrive.com.