After relaunching the fashion for affordable roadsters in the 1990s, the MX-5 now finds itself alone in defending this endangered species. But Mazda intends to offer a fifth generation of this icon, which will remain faithful to the thermal engine.
Hard to imagine in the era of SUV-coupes, but in the 1990s and 2000s a real rush for roadsters took place. Fiat, BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Toyota, Porsche, MG… In a few years, all have added a fairly affordable two-seater sports car to their range. But today only the initiator of this movement, Mazda, is still present thanks to its MX-5, which appeared for the first time in 1989 and has since sold more than a million copies. A model which, despite its iconic status, could have seemed threatened by ever stricter environmental standards and buyers’ disinterest in consumer convertibles.
Only slight hybridization
Fortunately, the latest news from the front is pretty good. There should be a fifth generation of “Miata”, the name of the MX-5 across the Atlantic, and it will not yet succumb to the sirens of electrification. Or at least not as pronounced as what initial information had suggested: only slight hybridization would ultimately be involved. For the Japanese brand, keeping a weight as measured as possible is indeed one of the priorities. A goal still unattainable with a 100% electric motor and the large battery that it requires to carry. It is therefore always a heat engine that will be used by this fifth version, responding to the code name NE. But Mazda will retain this time one of the most sober on the market: the 2.0 SkyActiv-X, already released by the compact 3 and the CX-30 SUV.
A diesel ascending gasoline engine
If you do not yet know this four-cylinder petrol with a small disengageable compressor, know that in certain phases, it has the particularity of adopting the same principle of combustion as a diesel. The air-fuel mixture then ignites by self-ignition rather than by spark from a spark plug. The interest is precisely to be able to announce a consumption quite close to that of a mechanic powered by diesel. without requiring such a complex pollution control system. In practice, the result at the pump has so far been a little more mixed than expected. But the MX-5, already far from being gluttonous, should make its featherweight speak to remain one of the most sober sports cars on the market and thus avoid an ecological penalty as dissuasive as that of its rival Toyota GR86.
Style inspired by the Vision Coupé concept
As a bonus, we can count on Mazda engineers to equip it with a manual gearbox that is always so enjoyable to handle, a playful and balanced chassis or a head cover that is easy to fold up. All accompanied by a line and a cabin closer to the latest in-house productions, following the influence of the much appreciated Vision Coupé concept. It remains to be hoped that they will also be able to give more character to SkyActiv-X, which currently favors flexibility over temperament despite its 186 hp and 240 Nm. Even if the engines have never been the main asset of the Miata, the adoption of the current 2.0 of 184 hp, in 2018, all the same brought a resurgence of aggressiveness at high speeds. As for the small 131 hp 1.5, not sure that it still has an equivalent on the MX-5 NE, due to the lack of a reduced-displacement SkyActiv-X engine. Yes, the time is definitely no longer favorable to really affordable roadsters.
Source: Coach
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