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NEWSPAPER.COM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2013
AUTOMOTIVE Fine Lines
AS51
WE’VE
Japan’s Mazda Miata a better British roadster If you want to know when the retrorevolution in new-car design began, look no further than the Mazda Miata, the little roadster that turned an aging design into a modern art form. We’ve all seen Miatas. For years now those small, two-seat, cute-as-abug-in-a-rug convertibles have been seen cruising busy freeways, bounding along twitchy two-lane rural roads and darting in and out of traffic as if weaving some imaginary giant basket. Since 1989, the Miata has meant magic to drivers of relatively modest means. And it has done so with a style all its own... sort of. Since its inception, few automakers have dared market such a specialized transportation module at such an attractive price. More competitors came along, such as the Pontiac Solstice, but Mazda had a 15-year headstart. Over the years, it’s easy to forget the frenzy caused by the Miata’s arrival in 1989. The car was actually visually modelled after a 1960s-vintage Lotus Elan, an admittedly cute looking but poorly constructed machine that was fragile in the extreme and lacked any semblance of interior space. The Elan seemed a less than ideal example of a sports car to emulate. However, members of Mazda’s California design team wisely looked past the Lotus’s shortcomings. They correctly surmised that if the nostalgic look would evoke fond memories of the good old days (after all, how many people have actually driven a Lotus Elan), then the Miata’s modern-day character, backed by then state-of-theart mechanical components, highquality fit and finish and affordable price would certainly help clinch the deal. Mazda also possessed considerable sports-car production experience. The rotary-powered RX-7 had been a big hit since 1978, although it had shifted to the premium end of the price scale. This allowed the Miata to sell in a more popular price range and in a category all but abandoned by the world’s automakers. Those early MX-5 Miatas, the car’s full name, were immediately gobbled up by hungry customers who had fallen hard for the car’s retro looks and bargain-basement sticker. In fact, as demand far exceeded supply, price gouging and quick-flip resales added thousands to the prices paid by many buyers. Regardless of the amount spent to obtain a Miata, everyone came away happy. The car delivered on all its promises and then some. It was
comfortable, the gauges were easy to read and the control-panel knobs and switches were straightforward and close at hand. The manual-folding soft top could be easily raised or lowered by one person who remained sitting inside. Mechanically, the Miata’s reliable 116-horsepower 1.6-litre DOHC four-cylinder engine and slick-shifting five-speed manual transmission delivered spirited, although hardly rapid performance, producing zero-to60-mph (96 km/h) times of about nine seconds. Most importantly, though, Miatas were a ball to drive. They could be tossed around corners with abandon and not lose composure and their surefooted disc brakes were there to bail out drivers who let their exuberance get the better of them. Mazda’s something-for-everyone approach with the Miata also extended to an options list that included air conditioning, power windows, cruise control, anti-lock brakes, alloy wheels and a lightweight removable hard top. One unusual extra was an automatic transmission, a feature that’s still available today but one totally out of keeping with the car’s sporting image. First-year 1990 Miata sales topped 40,000, an excellent achievement for such a limited-purpose car. Complaints were few and far between with most centring on the car’s lack of power. For the truly committed, the automotive aftermarket rushed in to supply turbochargers and other powerenhancing accessories. Over the years, Mazda kept the Miata pot boiling by regularly increasing engine displacement and horsepower, in addition to adding an available sixspeed manual shifter. More than 750,000 Miatas were built before the Miata name was shed for production of the larger and more powerful MX-5 for the 2006 model year. Whether Mazda thought the Miata handle had run its course or that it was just too cute and ran counter to the direction of the new car is a matter of some speculation. But interestingly, the Lotus Elan was not the focus for the redesign, but the Miata itself, which has created a much larger and more loyal following than the British car could ever have hoped to muster. In that respect, the Miata is so significant that it has surpassed the very car it was intended to emulate. Malcolm Gunn is a feature writer with Wheelbase Media. He can be reached at www.shiftweekly.com by using the contact link. Wheelbase supplies automotive news and features to newspapers across North America.
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Malcolm Gunn
Wheelbase Media