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Mazda's MX-5 is not about the how fast it goes it's all about the sheer fun factor. Photo Gallery
- MX-5 is a 2-litre engine up front, six-speed manual or auto in the middle, driven axle at the back.
- It's quick and it is low to the ground to accentuate the feeling of speed but it won't slam you into the compact bucket seats.
- The MX-5 no longer sounds like a Singer sewing machine instead it sounds more like a baritone.
It's been 20 years since the birth of the Mazda MX-5 but time has hurried and the car remains almost unmistakable from its ancestor.
It is becoming the Galapagos turtle of the motoring world — fascinating in its ability to look its age when born and exactly the same a century later.
Despite the intervening years, the MX-5 is still fresh and athletic and luring — ingredients that individually and collectively are perfectly represented in the way the little roadster drives.
It reeks of fun. it is fun.
It’s so simple — 2-litre engine up front, six-speed manual or auto in the middle, driven axle at the back. Occupants sit either side of the transmission with smiles on their faces. You get the picture.
There's a few things new for 2009, but mainly it's cleaning up the dashboard to better arrange the switches, add a more sensible centre console storage area and change the fabrics.
Engine
Mechanically it remains the 2-litre engine that's a slight tune-up of the one in the Mazda3. This year the engine in the manual-transmission model revs 500rpm higher — now redlined at 7500rpm — to extend gear upchanges, but produces no more power or torque.
Mazda goes to considerable lengths to maintain these extra, ostensibly useless, 500 revs.
It made a new forged crankshaft to minimise vibration at high engine speed, fully-floating pistons with higher pin-boss reliability, a new design of valve springs to minimise valve bounce at high revs, and employed more durable materials for the connecting-rod bearings.
But it does allow the engine to be wrung within mere millimetres of its life and that's the essence of small-bore sports car motoring — apparently.
To ensure you enjoy your aurally knee-trembling trip around the tachometer dial, Mazda adds an exhaust system that enthusiastically sings the high notes.
Previous MX-5s always sound like a Singer sewing machine at the hands of a skilled seamstress. Now it has a more baritone — dare I say, without being sexist, masculine — tune which will please not only the owner but also those being passed.
Which makes you want to drive it and drive it loud and hard.
Driving
Here's where you discover that the MX-5 isn't particularly fast. It's quick and it is low to the ground to accentuate the feeling of speed, but it won't slam you into the compact bucket seats and pry your fingertips from the leather-rimmed steering wheel.
It will, however, relay irregular road bumps to your derriere — a point that MGTC and TD owners will be almost faint with masochistic delight — which may sour your opinion after a long country run.
But that's what the MX-5 is all about. No, not hurting yourself but getting out to experience the rawness of the motoring world and to press a button and get the roofdown so you can be at one with nature and it can be at one with you. Which explains the bird poop on the driver's seat after I sought a brief respite near a roadside tree.
It isn't especially quiet, even though this model tested is the metal-roofed roadster-coupe. But the chassis is certainly taut and thanks to 50:50 weight distribution, the handling is very good.
It is a light car. This version is 1167kg plus driver and fuel so if you start experimenting with cornering you may find the back hop and skip over uneven surfaces. But it comes standard with electronic stability and traction control and so holds its line very well through the bends.
I had a few laps of Nurburgring's north circuit in one of these on a very wet day last October and became addicted to its precision through the bends and the sheer fun of letting the little engine have its head.
It is the type of car that suits a lifestyle yet fits into daily tasks. The boot is reasonably accommodating — because there is no spare tyre — and there are storage bins in the cabin behind the seats.
It can give a bumpy and noisy ride but, hey, the enjoyment factor here outweighs any discomfort. I'd buy one.
Snapshot
Price: $48,755
Engine: 2-litre, 4-cylinder
Power: 118kW @ 6700rpm
Torque: 188Nm @ 5000rpm
Performance: 0-100km/h: 7.8 seconds
Economy (official): 8.5 litres/100km, (tested): 9.2 litres/100km
Emissions: 200g/km (Corolla: 175g/km)
Transmission: 6-speed manual; rear-drive, LSD
Rating: 92/100
Rivals: Alfa Romeo 2.2 Conv ($69,990) 86/100; BMW 120i Conv ($52,900) 88/100; Audi A3 1.6 Conv ($43,900) 87/100; Nissan 350Z Touring Conv ($76,990) 85/100; Lotus Elise 1.8S ($69,990) 91/100.
