New Mazda MX-5 starts production – pre-order now open in UK

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The new Mazda MX-5 – revealed September 2014 – has now gone in to production in Japan, and pre-orders are now open in the UK. Prices to be revealed later in 2015.

The new Mazda MX-5 – which was revealed last autumn as a new model for 2015, and will also arrive as the new Fiat 124 Spyder – is an evolution of the MX-5 we’ve know for 25 years, with the same simple, lightweight ethos and new, efficient engines. And it’s now gone in to production.

Mazda has confirmed they’ve started building the new MX-5 in Japan, and that it will start to arrive in Japan in June. But it’s going to take a bit longer in the UK.

Although Mazda has now opened pre-orders for the new MX-5, it’s going to be late summer before it starts to arrive in the UK. Which is a bit of a shame, as the MX-5 is a great little car to run around, top down, on a balmy summer’s day.

As Hammond discovered in yesterday’s Top Gear, the new SKYACTIV engines – a 2.0 litre with 158bhp and a 1.5 litre with 129bhp – aren’t going to tear your hair out, but they offer enough to make the nimble MX-5 a lot of fun.

Styling of the MX-5 is as much an evolution as the car itself, and although the rather frowny face may not be to everyone’s taste, it’s far from being enough to make the new MX-5 unappealing.

With prices likely to start from around £20,000 (Mazda say they will reveal full specs and prices for the new MX-5 for the UK later in 2015), it offers something no other car really does.

Apart, that is, from the Fiat 124 Spyder.

Because when that arrives in 2016 it will be made by Mazda alongside the MX-5 and be much the same under the skin, although it’s rumoured Fiat want a version with much more power than the MX-5, probably sporting an Abarth badge.