They say that along, with MPs and estate agents, journalists
are the least trusted professionals around. Well thank goodness Mazda didn’t
know about it because the Mazda MX-5 may never have been made!
Mazda MX-5
achieves an excellent on highways and on city street due in large part to its
cutting-edge
Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, when in February
1989 the car débuted at the Chicago Motor Show, the man behind it all was
American Bob Hall, a known motor noter with a love for classics. Hall was well
respected by Mazda and when the carmaker asked him, in 1979, what should it do
next, they didn’t dismiss Hall’s idea of an affordable retro sports car albeit
tailored for the modern world.
Via Mazda’s forward thinking Offline 55 project the
MX-5 took shape in the early 1980s and by 1986 Mazda started to get serious
about production. Labelled P729, the Mazda experimental (MX) car was the
fifth in a series of ‘M’ concept cars, which gave the name MX-5, although
in the States it was known as the Miata and in Japan, the Eunos Roadster.
By the time the MX-5 was launched in the UK, in 1990, the
affordable sports car was just starting to enjoy a rebirth worldwide. With MG
and Triumph long gone, Reliant producing the unbelievably ugly Scimitar two-seater
and Fiat throwing in the towel with its brilliant mid-engined X1/9, it was
down to the Japanese to show the way but not before doing what they were
renowned for copying!
Copy Cats
As we had seen several times decades earlier, the Japanese
were fantastic at studying markets, soaking up knowledge and, in the end,
making a better product than anybody else. It happened to electronics, cameras,
British motorcycles and then our cars.
This is a special
edition; ordinary models weren’t quite so plush but all are roomy, comfortable
- with great gear change!
Granted, that nation’s original efforts were largely
noteworthy rather than anything special, but by the 1980s the Japanese car
industry had not only caught up but surpassed its more established rivals. The
MX-5 was one more nail in the coffin of the UK car industry.
The Mazda sports car was no innovator and relied upon
nothing more exotic than the running fear from its 323 saloon. And yet the MX-5
quickly gained the reputation of being the reborn Lotus Elan at a time when
Lotus was launching an all new Elan; guess which was better received?
Whether or not Mazda really did buy an original Elan to
craft the MX-5 on is still a point of argument although it did have similar
minimalist, clean looks boasting pop up headlamps, while opening the bonnet
revealed an engine which didn’t look unlike that of the famous Lotus-Ford Twin
Cam... But best of all the new MX-5 was
Rear Wheel Drive - Character Changing
Toyota beat Mazda to the showrooms with its mid engined MR2,
the modern successor to the Fiat in many ways, while the MX-5 kept the design
as orthodox as possible. While they weren’t direct rivals, they appealed to the
new generation of sports car fans who were a world away from their fathers in
what they wanted from a fun sports car.
You tell us, does
this engine look like the Lotus Twin Cam or not? Whatever, the Jap is much
easier to run and fix
No longer, in the post Yuppie era, did they want to get
their hands dirty fi xing yet another breakdown. No more would they put
up with a hood that was harder than a tent to erect and equally leaky. And they
had no time for such drivel that rattles, squeaks and groans was all part of
sports car life.
And that’s where the MX-5 got it so right. On the one hand
it looked like a 1960’s classic and had the aura of a typical British sports
car albeit like the Elan rather than an MG. On the other, it offered something
neither of those two car makers could ever provide with regularity reliability.
At a stroke, Mazda had made the 24/7 sports car.
The plaudits came thick and fast. The Mazda looked like an
Elan, went pretty much like the Lotus yet could be used with nonchalance of a
Volkswagen Golf.
Rightly so Mazda was congratulated on its efforts although
some took a more cynical almost sour grapes angle. The Japs had done it again,
this time taking all that British car fans hold dear and made a modern copy but
better. One journalist we knew observed that if Mazda really wanted to make an
authentic British retro sports car, then it should have fi tted a button
that, when pressed, dumped a pool of Castrol GTX on the drive. And Mazda should
have ensured that the doors didn’t quite fi t and the roof leaked. Now
that’s authenticity!
