The story of the Mazda MX-5 and a look on the brand new one

You may not have heard to much about this car, but in the car world it's considered one of the automotive legends in history. It's the Mazda MX-5 (or Miata as it's called in the US). The reason it's so popular is because Mazda did everything right. Put a small and efficient engine in the front, rear wheel drive, a manual gearbox in the middle, low weight and 50:50 weight distribution. This recipe makes for a light, cheap and fun car, in which it is.

Nothing is perfect, so there has been some complaints about the MX-5's over the years. The main ones are it's underpowered and it's to "girly". The MX-5 has always been looked at as one the cars that your male hairdresser might be driving around in, that may occure because of the big, happy smile on the front, but that may have changed now. 

The new MX-5, (which is made in colaboration with Fiat), has a whole new look. It doesn't look like it's smiling anymore. It's not just the outside that has changed. The engine, the suspention and the whole drive train in modern technology. As always, you have two engine choises, in the new one, you have the option to choose a 1.5 liter four-cyliner engine producing 130 hp and 150 N/m of torque. You also have a 2.0 liter engine producing 160 HP and 200 N/m of torque, althought the 2 liter will most likely only be sold in the US. 

The Miata has always been a popular car because you get what you pay for and that doesn't often invold huge power and major suspention upgrades. Mazda has made a solution to this problem, sort of. They've made a "Mazda MX-5 RS" special version that features Bilstein shocks, various upgraded suspention parts and Recaro seats with a full Bose speaker system. This model will not feature power upgrades, but rather making it faster around the corners. The only down side to this is that it will not be sold outside of Japan. I, as a student, would never ever be able to afford something close to this car, but it's kind of sad that only one country gets special editions like this.