MAZDA’S THE ULTIMATE GOOD SPORT.. YOU HAVE IT ALL FOR £30K

Since 1989 the MX-5 has offered all the performance you need at an affordable price. In other words, it gives as much driving pleasure as a Ferrari, Lamborghini or Porsche. I know this as I’ve been driving all these cars for the last 30 years.

The MX-5 we’re testing this week is not entirely new, more of a tweak and polish for 2020. It’s still brilliant though, and affordable, even though it’s the first MX-5 I’ve tested that costs over £30,000. That Porsche, by the way, costs £155,970.

The car is the RF version which is the one with the crafty folding hard-top roof, which stows itself away in just 13 seconds. Both in stowed and in fully up position, the RF (which stands for Retractable Fastback) looks fantastic. It’s the most popular version of the car, bought by more people than the fabrictopped roadster.

I love its looks with the distinctive flying buttresses at the back, and was really excited about driving the car when Mazda launched it in Barcelona a few years ago. The one huge disappointment was that there was an enormous amount of wind noise

Mazda MX-5 RF Sport

Tech two-seat sports car

Price: £30,305

Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder, 184PS

0-62mph: 6.8sec

Fuel consumption: 40.9mpg

Co2: 155g/km

when the roof was folded down – even at legal motorway speeds.

Pretty much every journalist picked up on this at the time and Mazda’s engineers have since had the car in a wind tunnel and come up with some crafty aerodynamic tweaks and add-ons around the rear of the folding roof that has made matters much better.

You can now drive the car on a motorway without the need to

Mclaren has announced a 50-car limited run of 720S special editions to celebrate the company’s victory at Le Mans in 1995 with its F1 sports car. The cars will be finished in grey or orange and will feature a roof scoop, unique 5-spoke wheels and carbon fibre racing seats. Each will cost £254,500, but Mclarens tend to depreciate horrendously. You can find 720s cars that are less than a year old being sold for around £125,000. No one will want to lose more than a hundred grand in a year.