The Mazda Miata is one of few cars produced today that adheres to the original "sports car" formula. In fact, the spritely Japanese roadster has carried the torch so well since its introduction in 1989 that each revision has brought worry to the hearts of car nerds everywhere. Does something so good really have to change? Even a little bit?
The formula, in case you didn't know, goes like this: lightweight, rear-wheel drive, front engine, no roof. The good news is that, for the Miata's third generation, those fundamentals are still intact.
But is the car any better?
To answer that question we gathered a 2005 Mazdaspeed Miata and our faithful first-generation Project Miata. Together, these two cars represent the culmination of both aftermarket and O.E. tuning in the Miata world. Both are powered by turbocharged 1.8-liter engines and utilize track-biased suspensions. Don't place your bets yet, though; the new car makes almost as much power as the Mazdaspeed Miata, and is the recipient of Mazda's latest chassis technology and engineering efforts.
So, which car is the best weapon to have handy during a weekend cone-bashing session? Which is the best daily companion? Which is the best value? We explore the dynamic differences of each, on the street, through the autocross cones and in our own pocketbooks.
2006 Mazda MX-5
Right off the bat it's clear that this is a brand-spankin'-new Miata, in every sense of the word. The car looks like it escaped Mazda's sensibility hacks altogether and hit the road straight out of the concept car unveiling. The ergonomics are much improved over the previous car, too, with increased elbow room and a better seating position-deep in the car-so you no longer feel like a roof-mounted camera when you're behind the wheel.
The important stuff has changed too. The new 2.0-liter MZR engine is located almost entirely aft of the strut towers, which should give the car great balance and a low polar moment of inertia (read: more flickability). The MX-5 has a much more linear power delivery than either of its two boosted brethren, and it weighs less than the Mazdaspeed car-almost 100 pounds less, actually, at 2,459 pounds. All that and it still has the same kick-ass weight balance (52 percent front and 48 percent rear, according to our corner scales) that we love about the Miata.
On the flip side, we were surprised to find that the torquey MZR mill, rated at 170 hp from the factory, only pumped out 134 hp on our Dynojet (see sidebar, page 47). And the 205/45R-17 Michelin Pilot Precedas are geared more toward everyday civility than a weekend at ten/tenths with us behind the wheel.
2005 Mazdaspeed Miata
Mazda did the inevitable when it plopped a turbo on the second-gen. Miata. The 1.8-liter BP engine, with its forged internals, was built to be turbocharged. In this case, Mazda says the turbo bumps the BP's output to 178 hp at the crankshaft. On the dyno, we managed to eke out 152 hp at the wheels.
The car gets a short-throw six-speed transmission and a Torsen limited-slip differential to help translate the boost into forward motion. Proprietary 17-inch Racing Hart wheels wrapped with sticky Toyo Proxes R28 rubber work in tandem with an effective Mazdaspeed suspension and near perfect 52/48 front/rear weight distribution to keep the car reflexive during cornering. The suspension features stiffer springs with a slightly lower ride height and specially valved Bilstein shocks.
Despite being heavier than its new brother, at 2,557 pounds (wet), the Mazdaspeed car has a better power-to-weight ratio, which means it's second only to our neck-snapping Project Miata in the oomph department.
1995 Project Miata
The displaced orphan that we like to refer to as Project Miata has led a constantly changing existence, which might mean that it has evolved into a finely honed track tool. Or it could mean the car is a rolling junkyard of mismatched parts, barely working in unison to stay on the road at all.
Armed with a much more efficient turbo setup than the Mazdaspeed car, Project Miata makes 187-wheel hp at 9 psi of boost, while boasting less turbo lag and quicker spool. It may not be as cushy as either new car, but it is quite a bit lighter, at 2,345 pounds with a full tank of gas.
Today, the little monster is wearing 16x7-inch Buddy Club SF wheels wrapped with 225/40R-16 Toyo Proxes T1-R rubber. A roll bar, some unconventional chassis bracing and thicker anti-roll bars work with a stiffer-than-stock KW Suspensions coil-over setup to make the car a weekend track stud that can still commute to work.
The Test
Fontana, Calif., isn't the high desert, but it does share some key likenesses: It's damn hot, it's damn dusty and most people would rather be dead than wander its blazing expanse for 10 hours. We do it all the time. This time, we're here to gather data on our three competitors, from 200-foot skidpad and 700-foot slalom numbers to comprehensive telemetry feedback on an autocross course.
An autocross that doesn't have at least one Miata is as rare as a wedding without a token drunken uncle. No car is more synonymous with orange cones, chalk dust and nerds with timers. For this reason, the autocross is the most important test of the bunch. We set up a half-mile track that typifies a weekend autocross and divided it into eight segments, consisting of five jigsaw puzzle-tight corners, a 200-foot-radius 190-degree curve, and a sizeable high-speed slalom followed by a top-of-third-gear straight.
On to the testing.
Not surprisingly, the car that feels best balanced around the skidpad is our Project Miata, which is almost easier to place with the gas pedal than it is with the steering wheel. Even on a test surface dusty enough to be a hard-packed dirt track, the car pulls an impressive .93g on street tires.
Through the slalom, the extreme slip angle of the Toyo T1-R tires is evident-the car really holds on, despite being in a drift after each transition. Project Miata bested the second-place MX-5 by 1 mph (71.7 mph vs. 70.7 mph) when all was said and done.
In our autocross, it's immediately apparent that being easy to place isn't its only strength-the instantaneous boost response overshadows the chassis' instant feedback. Actually, that's an understatement. Driving the 187-wheel-hp Miata through the autocross on street tires is like riding a pissed-off lion through rat maze built on an ice rink. It's a mad frenzy that starts at corner one, where the rear tires quickly turn into white smoke and doesn't stop until the finish line.
The advantage of massive wheel spin was most clear in section five, where the car was able to rotate under power between the tight corners, besting the Mazdaspeed Miata by .69 seconds, and the MX-5 by .74 seconds-the biggest gap we encountered in all the data. Interestingly, Project Miata was bested through section seven by its challengers-both posting .90g averages through the constant-radius corner, compared to its substantially lower .83g. Project Miata's tail-wagging antics cost more than half a second in both cases.