Mazda MX-5RF
REPORT 7 £ 27,795 OTR/£28,815 as tested/£290pcm WHY IT’ S HERE Do a hard-top roof and big buttresses add to the MX-5 experience? DRIVER Ollie Kew
OUR MX-5 RF 2.0 GT SPORT NAV+ IS AS EXPENSIVE AS MX-5s GET
– almost £30k. And pleasant as it is to know it’s as loaded as MX-5s come, something’s been niggling at me, and it’s this. When you buy an MX-5, you’re not really buying an out-and-out sports car – even with the newly revvier, feistier engines, and the impressively diet kerbweight. What you’re really buying into is the quintessential roadster experience. Once you’ve got the top down, the sun’s out and your backside is skimming along the cat’s eyes, that’s pretty much what you bought the ticket for. Perhaps everything else – extra poke, chromed air vents, et al – is kind of arbitrary.
To find out, I could’ve begged Mazda to send a bargain-basement MX-5, but why be greedy when there’s the Bank of Mum and Dad? Or rather, Mum and Dad’s garage. My folks have owned an MX-5 for a couple of years now, accruing miles slower than a barn-find 250 GTO. It’s a soft-top, with the earlier 1.5-litre engine, good for only 128bhp. It wears tiny 16in alloys with thickset tyres for a proper Sixties roadster stance. Spec-wise, it’s a Sport Nav, so it’s got the same touchscreen inside as our 2019 car, save for Apple CarPlay. But everywhere else, it’s been pared back. Less grip, less power, less weight, less complication. But crucially, it doesn’t feel any less of a good car.
If this were a German über-roadster, the idea of operating the roof would be preposterous. But the MX-5 suits that humility, that lack of complication. The RF’s folding hard-top looks slick, but getting it up and down requires pulling over, lest you trip over the 6mph operation limit and get stuck part-roofed. No such worries for my folks. My dad says it takes him back to his motorcycling days, but now he’s getting on a bit, it’s nice to have the stability of two extra wheels. Our RF is a good car, but I’d team its engine with the soft-top and less spec for the ultimate modern throwback roadster.