Can the new Mazda MX-5 capture the magic of the original? Weight for the answer…

MINE, JAPAN — When it arrives in Singapore, the new Mazda MX-5 will be the most exciting car with a Category A COE. That’s happening early next year, but in October the 2.0-litre model rolls into town, and that’s reason enough to cheer.

Some people think of cars as appliances. Some are car enthusiasts. And some have a deep love of driving. It’s at this last group of people, above all, that Mazda is aiming the new MX-5.

The MX-5 never really went away, and has always served as a halo car for the brand, but Mazda has pressed the ‘reset’ button with this fourth-generation model.

It’s an exciting return to the 1989 original’s premise of taking driving pleasure and stripping it down to its essence, and combining that with Japanese quality.

In effect the first MX-5 (or “Miata”, if you’re American) copied from classic British roadsters and the wind-in-the-hair motoring they offered, but left out their leaky roofs and dodgy electrics.

Its success (the MX-5 has been by far the best-selling two-seater roadster in history, with nearly one million examples sold) means that its influence has been enormous.

The roadster market in the 80s was moribund, and without the Mazda MX-5 we would probably never have enjoyed the resurgence of the segment that took place after its arrival.

Though you would never get their respective makers admit say it, the MX-5’s success is likely to be more than a little responsible for cars like the Mercedes-Benz SLK, the BMW Z3 (now Z4), the Porsche Boxster, the Fiat Barchetta, the Honda S2000, Suzuki’s delightful Cappuccino, and who knows how many other open-top cars dedicated to fun?

Can the new car capture the magic of the original? It certainly looks the part, which is good start. The MX-5’s proportions are spot-on, with a long-bonnet/short-overhang shape providing a classic shape to which lovely details are added.

To get the bonnet so low-slung, the car needed LED headlamps (for the slimness inherent in their bulbs), and one designer told me that they fought hard to have the wheels located as near the corners as possible, to give the MX-5 the proper stance.

Body-coloured plastics were added to the inside of the doors to blend the cabin with the exterior, and you sit closer to the rear wheels than the front. Mazda says that helps both the driver and the car look better, more purpose-driven.

There’s little doubting the MX-5’s purpose when you climb in, anyway. It’s not tiny inside, but it’s certainly cosy, and you sit deep in the car, thanks in part to specially engineered seats that have done away with springs inside, allowing them to be mounted low.

The MX-5 feels wrapped around you, and there’s a minimalism to the controls and instruments that does make you think about pausing your life so you can just enjoy a moment of driving pleasure.

Here’s a caveat: I only had four laps of Mazda’s Mine test track in a 1.5-litre, six-speed manual version of the MX-5. The first MX-5s for Singapore are the 2.0-litre, 160hp version, with either six-speed auto or manual options.

But what a sweet car the 1.5 manual is. There isn’t a huge amount of power, but the engine is revvy and smooth, spinning eagerly to 7,500rpm and singing merrily at the exhaust end with it.

The acceleration is keen rather than quick, and the transmission’s a delight. The clutch action is light with smooth pedal travel, and the gear lever snicks into place with the gentlest flick of your wrist.

I sat shotgun in an auto, and while it seems like a smooth and quick-thinking unit, I think that to buy an automatic MX-5 is to deny yourself a large chunk of the fun of driving one.

But whether you choose one with three pedals or two, the sweetest thing about the Mazda has to be its handling. There isn’t quite enough firepower under the bonnet to indulge any drifty desires, at least in the dry, but the MX-5 is that rare car that doesn’t only make you smile when you’re going perilously fast.

Instead, there’s a built-in playfulness to the car that’s highly infectious. After a few corners you begin to throw the Mazda into bends, emboldened by the steering’s responsiveness, the car’s ability to stick to the road, and its habit of supplying you a steady patter of feedback.

Through it all, it just feels so game and cooperative. Mazda calls this sort of thing “Jinba-Ittai”, a Japanese phrase that describes a sort of oneness between a rider and his horse, but the MX-5 is such an eager car that I think it feels more like a machine possessed by the spirit of a puppy.

With more power and 50Nm more peak torque, the 2.0-litre should be a treat, because the 1.5’s chassis feels as if it could easily handle twice the number of horses.

Yet, the MX-5 is a car that emphasises fitness, rather than muscle. A big reason it feels so aigle is that it’s around 100kg lighter than the last model, at roughly a tonne in weight. And the engineers’ enormous weight-loss efforts are enough to make you feel guilty about having that extra slice of bacon for breakfast.

Mazda takes pains to say it shaved 65 grammes — yes, grammes — off the soft-top.

Elsewhere, they’ve managed to wield the scalpel to greater effect. The air-con system is about 20 percent lighter than before, for example, and they’ve chopped 15 percent off the weight of the headlamps and made the seats thinner, saving nearly 8kg.

The frame is mostly (71 percent) high-strength steel (which saves the kilos because you can use less of it than conventional steel without sacrificing strength), and apart from the doors and the windscreen frame, all the body panels are made of aluminium. That alone saved 20kg.

There’s more: new front brake discs lopped off 6kg, the suspension is 12kg lighter, the gearbox weighs 7kg less.. you get the idea.

All of that was done because the MX-5’s project team came to realise how much the original car’s lack of weight contributed to its sparkling driving experience. “We know how much fun we can get with the first generation MX-5, that’s the reason why we reduced the weight,” says project manager Munenori Yamaguchi. “Light weight was the first priority.”

Incidentally, he adds that Mazda f
eels the new MX-5’s main competitor… is the first MX-5.

The new car is true to the original in one important way, too. You can erect or drop the roof with one hand, while driving at moderate speed (although larger muscles than mine should be able to do it on the highway).

Mind you, as with any MX-5 (or roadster, for that matter), you’ll have to sacrifice a lot of utility. There’s no glovebox, for starters (the passenger airbag lives in that space), but you do get three small lockers behind the front seats, an a shallow one between them.

Roof down, your conversations are liable to get shouty if you hit a highway, even with Singapore’s paltry 90km/h limit. Even with the roof overhead, a fair bit of wind noise makes its way into the cabin.

With a boot that holds 130 litres, the MX-5 isn’t going to work well for trips to Ikea, either. And obviously, you should only think about one if you can afford more than one car, your kids haven’t arrived yet or they’ve left.

That said, it would be nice to have an MX-5 at least once in your life. If nothing else, the sheer effort that has been put into it should warm the heart and fire the loins of any driving enthusiast.

Examples of this are all over the place. The engine sits way back to give the car 50:50 weight distribution, which is why it feels so balanced on the racetrack, but where other carmakers might stop there, Mazda goes a step further when it comes to the heart of the car.

When an MX-5’s engine is built, technicians place a plastic shield on the cam cover so that it doesn’t get stained or scratched during the manufacturing process. They even try to tighten the bolts carefully, an engine plant supervisor told me, to make sure they bolt heads look absolutely pristine. “I think the MX-5 buyer might be the kind of person who likes to look at the engine,” he said. “It’s worth it.”

That might seem extreme, and even a bit obsessive, but it’s the little things that help make this little car special.

A well-equipped 2.0-litre model should tip the pricing scales at around $170,000 by our reckoning, and the 1.5 could cost $15,000 less if we’re lucky. That’s not cheap, but it’s fair to say that there are cars that are far more expensive and yet, less able to delight the keen driver.

And what if you’ve never considered yourself a driving enthusiast? A test drive in the new MX-5 might just be the thing to change your mind.

NEED TO KNOW Mazda MX-5 1.5 Skyactiv-G
Engine 1,496cc,16V, in-line 4
Power 131hp (96kW) at 7,000rpm
Torque 150Nm at 4800rpm
Gearbox 6-speed manual
Top Speed 204km/h
0-100km/h  8.3 seconds
Fuel efficiency 6.0*L/100km
CO₂ 139*g/km
Price To Be Announced
Availability Early 2016 (2.0 SkyActiv-G available October 2015)

*estimated figure