Mazda breathes new life into first- gen MX- 5

Move over Ferrari and Jaguar, now there’s a budget- minded sportscar manufacturer with its own official restoration programme.

If your beloved Mazda MX- 5 is looking a little bit worse for wear these days, never fear . . . well, until the bill comes, anyway.

Mazda has announced its own specialty restoration service for firstgeneration ( and still utterly brilliant) MX- 5 roadsters.

The cult classic “NA” model MX- 5 is suddenly 28 years old and, as per the normal course of things, pristine examples cruising the streets are getting rarer. But Mazda — never a car company to shy away from celebrating its esteemed past — is helping to revitalise first- gen MX- 5s with an in- house restoration programme that even has buy- in from several component suppliers for the 1989- era MX.

These include original tyre supplier Bridgestone, and Nardi, who will supply previously discontinued new- old- stock steering wheels and gear knobs.

The catch?

Well there are two; the first one being that you’ll have to ship your precious MX to Japan to have the ground- up re- fettle completed.

But aside from freight fees, with around 23,000 first- gen MX- 5s ( or Eunos, as the first one was known in its domestic market) still on the road in Japan, there will probably be a waiting list stretching out to months, if not years. The other catch will be the price. This is no quick once- over with some upholstery revitaliser and a visit by a man in a “We Fix Your Alloys!” van. While the refurb service fee has been politely sidestepped in all the media we’ve seen, it will probably exceed the value of the average MX. But still, imagine your Mazda MX- 5 Mk 1 sparkling in the sun on that weekend run to the Coromandel. You don’t need Italian supercars to turn heads.