This issue, our spotlight of trivia is turned on the evergreen Mazda MX-5 family.
Mazda’s MX-5 is now such an integral part of the motoring scene that it is hard to remember just what a breath of fresh air it was in 1989. Here are just a handful of trivia highlights along a road that is still being travelled.
The Mazda Motor Corporation started life just over 100 years ago on the 30th January 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Company producing cork for gaskets, insulation and cushioning material. It was not until 1931 that the first vehicle – the Mazda- Go three-wheel truck – rolled off the production line, and it was another 29 years before Mazda produced its first passenger car, the tiny R360 coupé in 1960.
A company with global ambitions, exports to Europe started just seven years later. However, sales in the UK only started on a small scale in 1967 with just nine cars being imported in two years through Normand Garages, part of the Lyons food chain. Industria (London) Ltd took over the import of Mazda and officially launching the Mazda marque on the 30th September 1969 at the British Motor Show. However, it was not until 1972 when three Volkswagen GB executives departed the German manufacturer and took over Industria (London) Ltd and changed the name to Mazda Car Imports (GB) Ltd, that the sales started to rise.
Mazda was a relatively unknown brand in the UK in 1969 and early sales reflected the anonymous nature of the marque with only a few hundred cars sold in 1970. By the end of 1973 sales were at 8000 a year, but were limited in the mid-1970s by the voluntary export restriction agreement with JAMA (the Japanese Automotive Manufacturer’s Association) that promised sales of all imported Japanese cars in the UK combined would not exceed 11% of the total automotive sales here.
Over the last 50 years more than 30 different Mazda nameplates have been imported into the UK, but the MX-5 is quite possibly the most significant of those. This had been introduced at the Chicago Motor Show in 1989, although the British public had to wait until 1990 for the opportunity to get their hands on this affordable, lightweight two-seat sports car. Very much in the spirit of British sport cars of the 1960s and 1970s, it redefined the segment in the 1990s, and 30 years on is still going strong – in 2015 the fourth generation Mazda MX-5 was launched.
Amazingly, over 12% of all global sales have found a home in the UK. Here are some other snippets of trivia that may interest you.
1 It was the RX-7 of 1978 that first planted Mazda on the sports car map – a closed coupé much along the lines of the Datsun 240Z, but with the USP of a rotary engine under the bonnet. Named Motor Trend magazine’s Import Car of the Year in 1986, this sold well to eager US customers, but a move upmarket for the RX-7 Mk2 together with the demise of old stagers like the MGB, TR7 and Fiat 124 left a hole lower down that the MX-5 was designed to fill. Rival proposals were drawn up by Mazda’s designers in California and Japan, with the American proposal for a front- engined/ rear wheel drive car based on the classic British sports cars winning the day at a final showdown with top management in Hiroshima in September 1984.
2 However, the very first prototype MX-5 (known as V-705) was not built in Japan or America, but by a company called International Automotive Design in Worthing on the British south coast. They chose a backbone chassis and plastic body à la Lotus Elan, neither of which made it through to the production model – though an open section aluminium stiffening frame was added between the gearbox and rear axle casing to reduce flexing. In building the prototype, IAD cannibalised parts from three secondhand Mazdas – an RX-7, a 929 and a 323. The resulting V-705 was tested on the road in California and created quite a stir among the motoring community, even though it would be another four years before the production version was ready.
3 The little sports car from Mazda had three names, depending on the market. For much of the world it was simply the MX-5, which stood for Mazda Experimental vehicle number 5. American dealers wanted a name though, and Miata was chosen – supposedly it is an old German word meaning ‘reward.’ Meanwhile, in Japan Mazda set up a new brand called Eunos to market its sportier designs, and so the car was launched as the Eunos Roadster in its home country.
4 In the year 2000, with 532,000 global sales since launch in 1989, Mazda’s most famous sports car was officially recognised by the Guinness World Record body as the world’s best-selling two-seater roadster, a title it has retained to this day. By 2016 the 1-millionth MX-5 had rolled off the assembly line at Ujina Plant No.1 in Hiroshima, and this Soul Red soft-top then embarked on a world tour during which it was exhibited at 35 events in Japan, the UK, Spain, Germany, Belgium, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. More than 10,000 MX-5 fans signed their name on the bodywork.
5 MX-5 owners and fans gained their own Guinness World Record in 2013 when a parade of 683 MX-5s in Lelystad in the Netherlands set the record for the largest parade of Mazda cars, breaking the existing record of 459 Mazda MX-5s set in Essen, Germany in 2010. At the end of the day, about 250 cars still present joined to form a large drive-in cinema. Prior to the showing, the viewers were asked to pick from three films and, seated at the wheel of their cars, the owners cast their vote by blowing their horn to indicate their preferred film. The loudest ‘vote’ was cast for Arbitrage with Richard Gere in the starring role.
6 In 2014 American fans got in on the recordbreaking act too when 1934 roadsters from across North America attended a car show at the Mazda Raceway in Salinas, California – a new high for MX-5s at any single event. Another niche record was achieved in 2019 to celebrate the MX-5s 30th birthday when a first- generation MX-5 broke a record for the most hairpin turns covered in 12 hours. The 2900 curves, taken during a rainy night on the Kaunertal Glacier Road in the Austrian Alps, were more than double the previous best mark as recorded by the Rekord Institute for Germany.
7 From its UK arrival in mid- March 1990, the MX-5 had racked up 2246 sales by the end of its first year. Annual UK sales hit an all-time high in 2007 with 9234 sold, and in September 2010 sales in the UK surpassed the 100,000 mark, accounting for over 10% of global and 40% of European sales. The 100,000th example sold here was handed over with due ceremony to a Dr Helen Jones of Cheshire.
8 Three decades after the 1989 Chicago Motor Show had been the stage for the debut of the original MX-5, Mazda unveiled the MX-5 30th Anniversary Edition at the 2019 Chicago Motor Show. Exclusively offered in unique Racing Orange with forged aluminium Rays wheels developed especially for the MX-5, orange brake calipers and Brembo front brakes plus plenty of orange accents on the inside, just 3000 cars were produced globally. As one of the world’s biggest MX-5 markets, the UK received 550 of them – 370 convertibles at £28,095 each and 180 of the Retractable Fastback RF at £29,895. Did we mention they were orange?
9 Gaming fans were able to drive the Mk4 MX-5 months before the real car went on sale in 2015 – it was available as a free download for Forza Horizon 2 players on Xbox One. The virtual test drive allowed gaming fans the chance to enjoy the new model alongside three other MX-5 roadsters – the iconic 1990 original and a pair of unique MX-5 models: the 2010 MX-5 Super20 SEMA Show concept car and the 2005 MAZDASPEED MX-5, a turbocharged limited edition model that wasn’t sold in the UK.
10 A survey of over 3500 classic vehicle owners conducted at the Footman James Classic Motor Show in 2011 revealed that the Mazda MX-5 was the vehicle considered most likely to be a classic icon in 50 years’ time – an odd decision in many ways since most of us assumed that the Mk1 version already was an icon. The Mazda was picked by 7% of those interviewed, followed by the Bugatti Veyron with 5% and the Audi TT which was predicted to be a future classic icon by 4% of classic vehicle owners. These were followed by a slew of cars that each garnered 3% of the vote – the Aston Martin DB9, Fiat 500, Audi R8, Lotus Elise and Jaguar XKR, XF and XK models. However, using Donald Trump’s version of alternative maths means, of course, that the MX-5 didn’t win the vote at all...