The Mazda MX-5 is one of our favourite fun cars. It evokes all the joy of the cracking little British Roadsters of the past, like Austin Healeys, Triumph TRs, Lotus Elans and even older Morgans and XK Jags. It does it by being simple, efficient and fun to drive. It has just the right balance of grip and handling, coupled with enough feel to make it fun, but not so much it’s uncomfortable.
2009 Mazda Roadster (aka MX-5) gets tweaked
And Mazda know that they make the last of the traditional ‘British’ Roadsters. They know they have a winning formula, and they’re not going to wreck it by getting all poncey. But even the best of us need a little lift now and then, and Mazda has just released the details of a tweak or two to what is known as the ‘Mazda Roadster’ in Japan – the MX-5 to us.
The Roadster gets a new nose, which is more like the new Mazda 3, a fresh set of wheels and a new defining crease down the flanks. The engine gets to rev even more than before, and the auto ‘box (don’t, please, have an MX-5 with an autobox) gets some new settings. And the suspension gets some tweaks to the rollbars to make the balance even better. Throw in a dose of Bose and some sexy new dials, and you’ve got a car that looks fresh as a daisy.
And with sales of the MX-5 worldwide of more than 800,000, this is the best selling Roadster there has ever been. So it’s pretty clear that Mazda know exactly what they are doing with this update.
In truth, the press release on this is enormous. But all we need to know is it’s more of the same MX-5 goodness. And that’s how it should be. The Japanese call it ‘Jinba Ittai’, which literally means ‘Rider and horse as one’.
Couldn’t have put it better myself.
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