Mazda MX-5 2.0-litre Powershift road test - revised but unspoilt soft top motoring

By Steve Orme on Sep 14, 09 01:38 PM

You may, but I really don't, care if the Phoenix four made enough money out of ownership of MG-Rover to have their cats teeth diamond studded and swimming pools regularly filled with Moet.
Frankly, I wouldn't be interested had they bought matching gilded knickers for their wives and been transported around the Midlands in Sedan chairs carried by Nubian eunuchs.

What really bothers me is that what was left of the British car industry was sold for the price of a KFC bargain bucket with little interest form a Government that bailed out a load of bloated bankers less than ten years later to restore restaurant trade at the Oxo Tower
But what I care about most of all is that to enjoy a car that is reasonably priced, casts back to the days of moustaches, headscarves and Roberts radios I have to drive a Mazda.
Nothing wrong with Mazda, nothing wrong with the MX-5, it is just that I really do think if Elgar hadn't been busy writing Land of Hope and Glory he may well have designed the two-seater.
As it turns out we are left with the Mazda if we want good quality, reliable soft-top motoring. Engine at the front, rear wheel drive and free of Quasimodo fat-face tyres, it is a car to excite in the way my father got excited before they started building MGs to look good outside Cheshire tanning salons.
Mazda has just revised the MX-5, something that always brings on a fret when a product is already pretty good. Remember the MGB? A perfectly good gentleman's sporting carriage 'improved' by swapping chrome bumpers for Mick Jagger's lips.
In the case of the MX there has been some fiddling about in the engine with pistons and valve gear to amuse the terminally inadequate. Enough to now the same power and torque remain but with a much more masculine engine tone.
Apparently the front suspension has also been changed. I couldn't tell. Handling remains sheer pleasure and puts a chimp's grin on your face the man formerly known as prime minister Blair would be proud to own.
Much more obvious work has been done inside with improved switchgear and at long last a set of Recaro sports seats.
I can only assume DFS wanted their dining chairs back.
The £19,695 four-cylinder, two-litre injection had automatic Powershift gears, a bit too Californian for me but still inspired acts of joyful abandon. Like driving home from work at midnight with the top down.
That's not gay abandon, by the way, but you do run the gauntlet of homophobic comment from knuckle-scrapers who think life begins at three-litres. Go on boys, waste your money, you won't have as much fun.
Yes, with the hood up at 70mph the MX becomes a sort of sensory deprivation experiment. Yes with the top down Terry Wogan wouldn't dare drive one but with a 0-60mph time of 7.2 seconds and a very ordinary 130mph top speed you won't need to weld your ears back.
So you see, I'm not really concerned about the personal enrichment of four men who thought it a good idea to name their company after a badly roasted mythical chicken. I just wish they handn't been sold MG in a charity shop sale.