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2009 Mazda MX-5 Miata Grand Touring
2009 Mazda MX-5 Miata Grand Touring
Price (as tested): $31,010
Powertrain: 167-horsepower 2.0-liter four-cylinder, six-speed manual transmission, rear-wheel drive
Includes: 17-inch alloy wheels, automatic air conditioning, power retractable hard top, leather-trimmed seats, keyless entry and starter, seven-speaker Bose audio system, xenon headlamps, Bluetooth, Sirius satellite radio, traction control
EPA mileage: 21 city, 28 highway
Powertrain: 167-horsepower 2.0-liter four-cylinder, six-speed manual transmission, rear-wheel drive
Includes: 17-inch alloy wheels, automatic air conditioning, power retractable hard top, leather-trimmed seats, keyless entry and starter, seven-speaker Bose audio system, xenon headlamps, Bluetooth, Sirius satellite radio, traction control
EPA mileage: 21 city, 28 highway
I offer the following tale as a lesson to America's young people, with some sage advice, in the same category as “sign the pre-nup,” “don't eat the brown acid” and “always bet on black.”
Today's lesson, which is probably fairly self-evident: Don't think that a 1,500 mile, 24-hours-of-driving trip in the Mazda MX-5 Miata, formerly simply known as the Miata, is going to be a comfortable experience. It already sounds like one of those stupid endurance-experience feature stories in “Car and Driver.”
In reality, spending the entire July 4 weekend rolling from Denver up to scenic Bozeman, Montana, and back, in a charming, well-built but comfort-impaired, open-top, 2,500-pound roadster, was about as fun as you might expect.
The venerable Miata has charmed the pants of 20 years' worth of drivers looking for fantastically direct and grounded automobile, unpretentious in every way. While other manufacturers opted for bigger, faster, fluffier and fatter, the 2009 Miata stays true to its roots — although, admittedly, with 12 hours left to go on my return trip, bigger and fluffier might not have been such bad things.
The improved Miata is not a large vehicle, either in its external countenance, or its driver and passenger accommodations. With seats lowered all the way to the floor, I gingerly squeezed my about-average sized frame into the saddle a thousand or so times and was greeted with maybe an inch of forward-and-back play for comfort.
And that was about it. The position of the car's 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine apparently precludes much under-the-wheel foot space, and by mid-trip, I'd opted to discard my shoes into the passenger seat and just drive, commando-style. My legs are still killing me.
Having recently spent time in some like-minded competitors, including the BMW Z4, a Pontiac Solstice and a similarly (but twice-as-expensive) Porsche Boxster, it is indeed true that Miata's austere nature is clearly not designed for long, long excursions.
This is not to say that it was all wincing. For a shorter rip around the mountains, the Miata can't be beat, with a playful nature, some fantastic handling characteristics and a smooth, stripped-down setup. Mazda chose not to mess with the engine output too much in recent years and the new machine generates a peppy but not tire-liquifying 167 horsepower. It's fun at stoplights but not scary-super-fast; the good news is that the diminutive displacement generates a fairly regular 28-plus MPG, even at a sustained 80 miles an hour.
In cavorting mode, my tester's optional sport-tuned suspension and Bilstein shocks provide unsurpassed driveability and responsiveness; over the very long haul, concrete freeways made themselves well known to my spinal system.
Looking at the Miata's new grinning, anime-inspired face, how could you not love the machine? And with a totally trick automatic roof, a flourish of leather finishings and a powerful stereo (plus satellite radio, and Bluetooth), what kind of a meanie would say bad things about the long-running, 900,000-unit-selling king of low-priced, open-topped excursions? And just think how much money I would have had to spend on 1,500 miles worth of fill-ups in a fat and lazy Cadillac Escalade.
So it goes. Pick your poison, but remember that over the short haul, the Miata's got it made.
Today's lesson, which is probably fairly self-evident: Don't think that a 1,500 mile, 24-hours-of-driving trip in the Mazda MX-5 Miata, formerly simply known as the Miata, is going to be a comfortable experience. It already sounds like one of those stupid endurance-experience feature stories in “Car and Driver.”
In reality, spending the entire July 4 weekend rolling from Denver up to scenic Bozeman, Montana, and back, in a charming, well-built but comfort-impaired, open-top, 2,500-pound roadster, was about as fun as you might expect.
The venerable Miata has charmed the pants of 20 years' worth of drivers looking for fantastically direct and grounded automobile, unpretentious in every way. While other manufacturers opted for bigger, faster, fluffier and fatter, the 2009 Miata stays true to its roots — although, admittedly, with 12 hours left to go on my return trip, bigger and fluffier might not have been such bad things.
The improved Miata is not a large vehicle, either in its external countenance, or its driver and passenger accommodations. With seats lowered all the way to the floor, I gingerly squeezed my about-average sized frame into the saddle a thousand or so times and was greeted with maybe an inch of forward-and-back play for comfort.
And that was about it. The position of the car's 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine apparently precludes much under-the-wheel foot space, and by mid-trip, I'd opted to discard my shoes into the passenger seat and just drive, commando-style. My legs are still killing me.
Having recently spent time in some like-minded competitors, including the BMW Z4, a Pontiac Solstice and a similarly (but twice-as-expensive) Porsche Boxster, it is indeed true that Miata's austere nature is clearly not designed for long, long excursions.
This is not to say that it was all wincing. For a shorter rip around the mountains, the Miata can't be beat, with a playful nature, some fantastic handling characteristics and a smooth, stripped-down setup. Mazda chose not to mess with the engine output too much in recent years and the new machine generates a peppy but not tire-liquifying 167 horsepower. It's fun at stoplights but not scary-super-fast; the good news is that the diminutive displacement generates a fairly regular 28-plus MPG, even at a sustained 80 miles an hour.
In cavorting mode, my tester's optional sport-tuned suspension and Bilstein shocks provide unsurpassed driveability and responsiveness; over the very long haul, concrete freeways made themselves well known to my spinal system.
Looking at the Miata's new grinning, anime-inspired face, how could you not love the machine? And with a totally trick automatic roof, a flourish of leather finishings and a powerful stereo (plus satellite radio, and Bluetooth), what kind of a meanie would say bad things about the long-running, 900,000-unit-selling king of low-priced, open-topped excursions? And just think how much money I would have had to spend on 1,500 miles worth of fill-ups in a fat and lazy Cadillac Escalade.
So it goes. Pick your poison, but remember that over the short haul, the Miata's got it made.
