Our Classics
Our resident MX-5 fan helps to celebrate its 30th anniversary – and meets the man who started it all
OWNED SINCE January 2014 MILEAGE SINCE LAST REPORT 799 8T1O, T27A7L MILEAGE LATEST COSTS None
‘I ’m sorry to have to inflict this upon you… but it was 1989’s second-biggestselling single’, the commentator’s voice crackled apologetically over Gaydon’s loudspeakers. Cue a cut ’n’ shut version of Glenn Miller’s best-known riff as Jive Bunny’s Swing The Mood hit the decks – and I’m sure I could hear groans from as far away as the M40. Clearly, the MX-5 Owners’ Club was taking the details of the car’s anniversary do v seerryiously.
Keep it to yourselves, but I actually quite like the Jive Bunny album, but I hadn’t brought my Eunos along to the British Motor Museum for this particular nugget of late Eighties nostalgia. I was here because I’d been granted an audience with Tom Matano, the designer who penned the MkI’s lines, to discover some of the MX-5’s secrets.
Being an early example, NRX was treated to a spot in the club’s anniversary display rather than joining more than 2000 other MX-5s on the hill overlooking the museum, but it had to take the long way around to get here.
Two days earlier, it was threading its way through the M25’s traffi c on its way to Goodwood – staff writer Charlie might have been dealing with squeaky suspension in our £900 Mitsubishi Galant, but the Mazda was behaving impeccably. It had already spent a week standing in for my modern while it was in for an MoT and service, and was showing no signs of misbehaving, even with the worst that rush hour around Heathrow could throw at it. It’s a shame that in bringing it along I’d missed out on the Revival’s classic parking, but the MX-5’s 30th birthday bash was one outing I didn’t want to miss.
One thing I certainly appreciated on the early morning dash up the A34 was an extra that my wife Natalie had found online – a pair of cupholders. The leather-lined £20 item arrived just in time for this latest outing, and slotted in perfectly where the ashtray normally sits. It looks the part too, blending in nicely with the tan leather trim on my Japanese market V-Spec model.
As it happened, my Mazda was offered a spot at the end of a line-up of V- Specs from across the country, all in the same shade of Neo Green. Quite a privilege, but my heart immediately sank nonetheless. Yes, I know that it’s had five fairly tough years of being driven in all weathers, and that I’ve been putting thoughts of tackling the car’s cosmetics to the back of my mind while I squeeze one more summer of country lane fun out of it, but seeing NRX’s tired paintwork next to a line-up of gleaming examples in the same shade definitely put the job into perspective. It’s always been a car for driving, rather than showing off, but as I headed into the museum to find Mr Matano, I had visions of all the cleaner ones ganging up on it as soon as my back was turned.
I left Gaydon roof-down and ready to enjoy an evening of criss-crossing Warwickshire’s quieter roads on the drive home, but with fi rm plans in place to finally get cracking on making NRX look as good as it drives.
And with Jive Bunny on the CD player, of course, but shush – don’t tell anyone…