The new MX-5 is here! (At last)
Japan’s new fourth-gen roadster keeps things pure and simple
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Just make it lighter, faster and sharper. Cheers, Mazda
Never has the jump from generation to generation been so profound as it is with this car,” proclaimed Mazda design director Derek Jenkins at the launch of the MkIV MX-5. Of course, any styling boss worth his graphite is unlikely to say, “Yeah, it was pretty much spot-on as it was, so we just went to the pub instead”, but what’s most striking – and welcome – about the fourth-gen MX-5 isn’t how much has changed, but how much has stayed the same.
Sure, the styling itself is fresh and feisty. The shovel front end is sharp and aggressive, its headlights seeming to have been slashed out of the bumper. Two new lines peel back across the bonnet towards the screen pillars. The rear arches swell out in a way that makes Design features strategic use of
‘circle’ motif the tail taper and look even shorter. But though the new MX-5’s lines and forms are quite a departure from the previous generations, mercifully Mazda has resisted the urge to mess with the MX-5’s simple, flawless mechanical formula. This remains a roadster in the most traditional sense: two seats, engine at the front, driven wheels at the rear. An MX-5, only more so.
Less so, in some ways. Though wider than the outgoing MX-5, the MkIV is actually 105mm shorter – less than four metres from nose to tail. To give you an idea of size, those wheels are 16 inchers. It’s lighter, too. The drop is 100kg or so, meaning it weighs in at a neat tonne. In part, the MkIV’s lightness stems from the fact there’s less of it: it’s also lower. The centre of gravity has dropped, and the body uses a high proportion of aluminium at either end, so it’ll be keen to change direction.
As to the way it goes down the road, the new car has been engineered to provide a far greater dose of that MX-5 speciality: sharp reactions and a transparent connection between you and the tarmac. People who’ve driven prototypes say it combines more agility than before with a suppler ride. Unfortunately, these people work for Mazda so are biased. We’ll have to see for ourselves next year.
What we know right now is that the little Mazda cheerily bucks the global trend towards forced induction or, heaven forbid, hybridisation. Under the MX-5’s lowered bonnet, there’s no turbo to be seen. Engines
are from Mazda’s quick-responding highrevving SkyActiv high-compression petrol line. Strangely, the company won’t officially say even the capacity yet. But we gather the sizes won’t actually change from where they are in the Mazda3, at 1.5 litres and 2.0 litres. They have been modified to run longitudinally, but the power probably won’t change, so that’s around 165bhp for the 2.0. That’s very much the same power as the MX-5 has now, but it’s 10 per cent lighter, so the 0–62mph time should come down to the low-sevens.
Suspension is multi-link at the back and aluminium double wishbones at the front. Very much a sportscar layout. To keep the driveline’s responses precise, the diff housing at the rear is rigidly connected to the six-speed gearbox. The car will launch with a low-fi manual fabric hood, operable with just one hand, though we’re told a folding hard-top – RC in Mazda-speak – will follow.
Nothing too revolutionary, but then again the MX-5 has never traded on Tomorrow’s World- spec innovation. It’s always been about the simple pleasures, pleasures strong enough to have sold very nearly a million copies over the past quarter-century. The new version looks set to continue such sterling work.