Mazda MX-5 Miata Roadster Coupe – full details

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July 19 2006 At the 2006 British International Motor Show which opens today, Mazda has unveiled a new version of its motoring icon, the Mazda MX-5 Roadster Coupe, and it opens up a new dimension of fun and versatility for people who love open-top sports cars. The Mazda MX-5 Roadster Coupe is a brand-new counterpart to the third-generation MX-5, which launched in 2005. It has the same responsive performance and emotive styling as the soft-top model, but is equipped with a Power Retractable Hard Top—an electrically retractable hard top that doesn’t sacrifice any boot space. The roof retracts in three sections into a space behind the seats, leaving the boot completely unaffected and it does so very quickly in just 12 seconds (Mazda claims this is the quickest of any electrically retractable hard top on the market today), so it doesn’t interrupt driving enjoyment for long. And the entire mechanism has only marginally added to the weight at just 37 kilos more than the ragtop.

Since its launch in 1989, the Mazda MX-5 has been a smash-hit product around the world. It’s so popular that it holds a place in the Guinness world records as the world’s top-selling lightweight, open, two-seater sports car, and it has won over 150 industry awards around the globe. Demand is as strong as ever and by the end of May 2006, cumulative production stood at 769,454 units.

The current MX-5 — the third generation of this modern motoring icon — made its global debut at the 2005 Salon International de l’Auto in Geneva. It’s an uncomplicated open-top, lightweight sports car in which Mazda further evolved the Jinba Ittai-focused dynamics of the previous MX-5 generation for even greater driving enjoyment. And sports car enthusiasts around the world have overwhelmingly endorsed it.

Customers’ high evaluation of the third-generation MX-5 has been echoed in the form of many prestigious industry honours including the Car of the Year Japan 2005–2006 award, Wheels magazine’s 2005 Car of the Year award, BBC Top Gear magazine’s Roadster of the Year 2005 award, a Car and Driver 2006 10 Best Cars award, and selection as one of top three contenders for the 2006 World Car of the Year award.

The goal with the MX-5 Roadster Coupe was to further heighten the fun of the third-generation MX-5 open-top driving experience by incorporating a hard top equipped with a user-friendly open/close system. Realizing this goal meant also delivering the Jinba Ittai-focused dynamics that make the MX-5 fun to drive and the distinctive roadster design that make it fun to look at.

The light, compact, stiff body that forms the basis of Jinba Ittai-focused dynamics benefits from an optimally light, compact roof and from reinforcements that stiffen the body opening without creating excessive weight. The low yaw-inertia moment needed in a lightweight sports car benefits from the weight distribution yielded by storage of the roof in the cabin (as opposed to storage of the roof in the boot) where it’s close to the centre of gravity.

A light, compact body, a low centre of gravity, a low yaw-inertia moment, and the optimal front-rear weight distribution realized by a front-midship engine layout yield incomparable controllability .

The MX-5 Roadster Coupe is only 37kg heavier than the soft-top model. Although adopting the Power Retractable Hard Top made more weight unavoidable, the overall weight increase was kept as small as possible by steps taken to minimize component weight and reinforce the body for ample stiffness without greatly increasing the weight.

Further, the MX-5 Roadster Coupe is equally as compact as the soft-top model. An increase over the soft-top model of 10mm in the overall height with the roof closed is the only dimensional difference.

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