Thank Frankel it’s Friday: Why Mazda MX-5s are brilliant

And here’s the thing. At the same time I drove a large number of other cars, all far faster and more expensive than the Mazdas, including bona fide supercars and some track day specials.

So now you’re expecting me to say, ‘and do you know what? The little Mazdas were by far the most fun to drive.’ Well hate to disappoint, but I’m not because they weren’t. Not even close in fact. But the moment you take their relative values into account, well if there was ever going to be a moral victor from the contest, it would have gone to Mazda.

In particular two things amazed me about those Mazdas. And the first is that the modern car is actually better to drive than the original. So often when manufacturers find a formula that works beautifully, the temptation with the second generation is to mess with it, because you can’t just say ‘well folks, that’s already the best we can do.’ Cars have to appear to be new and, on paper at least, better. Which is why they become more powerful and therefore heavier and therefore less fun to drive. Not the MX-5: Mazda dieticians have kept an unwavering eye on the car’s waistline over what is now four distinct generations and if you take a new one and a 30year old and compare their specifications, they are staggeringly similar in all but outputs.

But second is the way it explodes the myth that mildly sporting cars aimed at more at the casual enthusiast rather than the rabid road warrior, have ultimately to handle in way that is super safe and therefore somewhat stodgy too. MX-5s don’t do that. They handle brilliantly.

On the road the modern MX-5 is a treat. The one I drove had the 2.0-litre engine, Bilstein shocks and a limited slip differential, all of which combined with the car’s superb natural balance, suspension geometry, brilliant gearbox and lightness of weight to provide a journey through some mountains I never wanted to end, despite the fact it was late and I’d been driving almost non-stop since long before dawn. Because it felt so alive, I did too.

But then on the track it became something else again. You could drive it smoothly and be impressed by the quality of its damping, the strength of its brakes and accuracy of its steering, or you could behave like a complete idiot by lobbing it into corners as you lifted off the throttle to see how far it would slide. I never found an angle from which it would not recover. Indeed, it would powerslide all the way up to and away from the apex like it was some 500bhp weapon on the Top Gear test track. It just goes to show how wrong are all those who insist that a car’s on track handling cannot be fully exploited without the aid of proper power. It wasn’t even wet.

Then again, this will be no surprise to many of you reading this, who have grown up driving and enjoying classic front engine, rear drive cars that need little or no excuse, let alone power, to shake their hips or let it all hang out. But it’s a big and rather lovely surprise to find exactly these traits not in a 1960s 105-series Alfa on crossplies, but a brand new Mazda.

One final great thing about MX-5s: they come at almost every price point from about a grand upwards, well maintained cars are exceptionally reliable and when they do need parts, they’re affordable and in plentiful supply. So if you don’t fancy spending a lot of cash on something flash and powerful, or old and unreliable, I couldn’t recommend one more highly. I just worked out I drove my first 29 years ago, and can confirm their power to entertain remains entirely undimmed.