Happy Birthday Mazda MX-5!
01 July 2009
The World’s best-selling sports car - the Mazda MX-5 - turns 20 this year.
A double decade worth of drop-top driving fun for the masses is an event well worth celebrating in Auto Trader’s book.
And to mark the occasion Web Editor Adrian Higgins got behind the wheel of the Mk1 as well as the newly-revised Mk3.
Convertibles have long been a British weakness, despite our limited opportunities to use them.
Long before the era of neck-scarves and noise reduction we were more likely to reach for another layer than think of raising the roof.
Whatever the model, there’s a certain joy and romance to alfresco-driving which occupies a completely different space from the pleasures of being cocooned in a, usually, better-handling coupe.
But combine the open-top capability with a bundle of driving fun and you’ve got the best of both worlds.
Modern day classic
And this is exactly what Mazda was aiming for when it launched the MX-5 in 1989.
Sold in Japan as the Eunos and in the US as the Miata, the MX-5 coupled a nostalgic approach (its cue being 1960s open-topped driving from Triumph, MG and Lotus) with the modern mechanicals of a manufacturer with a reputation for reliability.
Success for the 4-cylinder, 114bhp, 1.6-litre car was instant and seeing a trio of red, white and blue classic MX-5s lined up atop 14-inch alloys, at Inverness Airport – ahead of our Scottish test drive – it was easy to see why.
Part of the appeal lies in the price (at the time of writing the Auto Trader search returned 1,497 MX-5s for sale on the website – half of them with an asking price of under £5,000) but it’s the kind of car which can be described as pretty without proving off-putting to men.
Click the image below to view our gallery:
Pop-up headlights
In fact there was a regular stream of the mostly-male journalists coyly asking whether Mazda would be selling the old models at the end of the launch.
And of course the Mk1 brings that essential retro-sports car accessory, pop-up headlights (replaced with fixed lamps in the Mk2 due to changes in safety requirements).
Boot space, shared with a spare wheel, is just 125-litres, but we still managed to stow a pair of weekend bags before jumping behind the wheel of a car, the interior of which has changed little over its 20 years.
The simple instrument panel and central console has certainly evolved, the indicator stalk has swapped sides and the handbrake moved to the driver’s side of the gear stick, but the basic layout remains unchanged.
Shiny dashboard
There is a distinct shininess to the dashboard with materials having improved over the years but I found this part of its charm, and the soft-spongy seats were wonderfully comfortable.
Set off and it’s immediately apparent how motoring in general, and convertible driving in particular, have developed since the late-1980s.
Basically we’ve all been molly-coddled.
Conversations got louder and louder as we battled with the wind and road noise while slowing down at roundabouts provided a reminder that, yes, we did have the radio on.
Slowing down also served as a reminder of how much brakes have improved over the years, another development which cossets the modern driver.
Click the image below to view our gallery:
Key differences
But the combination of power-assisted steering, five speed gearbox and rear-wheel drive chassis are still the ingredients for fun, albeit a recipe which demands more respect than the current model with its selection of driver-aids.
The Mk1 demands a little more of the driver in other ways too. Brace yourself for olde-worlde driving skills like “opening the door by turning the key” (and that includes the boot) as well as manually removing the canvas roof. The good news is you should be able to beat the roof removal times of any modern car on the market.
The original MX-5 went on sale for £14,925, now the starting price has crept up to £16,345.
Sharing the same spirit as its groundbreaking forebear, today’s car delivers a more powerful response through a choice of 1.8-litre and 2-litre engines, hugely improved braking (I made a definite nod in the direction of the windscreen having driven the Mk1 first) and a more upmarket interior including luxury touches such as a Bose stereo.
Two seconds in 20 years
Go for the range-topping Sport-Tech and you’ll be able to cover 0-62mph in 7.6 seconds, nearly two seconds quicker than the MK1 while the top speed has gone from 117mph to 132mph.
We drove the revised Mazda MX-5 Mk3 at its International launch earlier this year and you can check out the full details of that road test by following the link.
Suffice it to say here that the latest car lives up to the lineage and takes the model a little further on its pathway to roadster perfection.
We also spent a morning driving the automatic model, newly introduced to the UK, which does the gear work for you or can be overridden by steering wheel mounted paddle shifts.
I’ll take two please
Obviously this is a more popular choice in countries where the auto’ box better suits the nature of the roads, such as the US, and for those who are looking to spend time in the car for its aesthetic rather than its driving qualities.
For me, these little cars were meant to be manually operated and snapping the stick between third and fourth as you negotiate a run of zig-zagging corners to unleash the car’s full potential is all part of the fun.
Budget will ultimately determine whether you’re in the market for a Mk1 or a Mk3, though the former certainly has a role as a cheap, fun second car if your main means of transport needs to offer more practicality.
I’d happily find room for one of each in our dream garage.
That's the MX-5 - but Mazda also built this monster:
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