While driving is often thought of as an activity that requires both hands and feet, the fact is that not everyone can operate a pedal box. Thankfully, hand controls have been around for quite a while, but retrofitting them costs thousands of dollars, and if you want to buy a hand-controlled car off the shelf, it probably won’t be a sports car. Unless you live in Japan. Mazda offers customers in its home market a hand-controlled MX-5, and that’s worthy of a hell yeah.
Officially called a “Self-empowerment Driving Vehicle,” this variant of the MX-5 starts with an automatic sports car and then adapts it so that drivers don’t need to use the pedals at all. A lever on the center console controls throttle and braking, while an available additional button on the right side of the steering wheel lets the driver control manumatic mode gear selection using just their right hand.
There’s other optional equipment worth noting too. There’s an optional pad for the sill to make it easier to slide in and out of the driver’s seat (shown below), and if you want to go top-down in inclement weather and take a folding wheelchair with you, Mazda offers a wheelchair cover for the passenger seat that seems to accommodate a 22-inch chair just fine. Of course, there’s a chance larger ones won’t fit, but to some, a smaller chair might be a sacrifice worth making.
Best of all, you aren’t just capped to one version of the MX-5. Sure, this hand-controlled version must be had with an automatic transmission, but you can get either the classic soft-top or the retractable hardtop RF model with all of these mobility adaptations depending on what you prioritize in a sports car.
This obviously rules because everyone deserves the opportunity to drive a fun car. While North America has a number of companies that’ll fit hand controls to vehicles, there’s nothing quite like OEM integration or the ability to finance the cost of hand controls along with the car. Mazda’s adapted MX-5 appears to be a great way of making one of the most financially accessible sports cars on the market more physically accessible, and we’d love to see it in North America.
If you want to drive a sports car, you should be able to drive a sports car, because it’s an experience that rules. The feel of the road, the wind in your hair, it all adds up to some of the most fun you can have on four wheels. Requiring hand controls shouldn’t stop anyone from living their best sports car life. Well done, Mazda.
[Hat-tip to Niilo!]
(Photo credits: Mazda)
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This is awesome news.
Unless your height is from torso length, then you still can’t drive a Miata.
But what if you don’t have hands?
Use your face to turn the wheel and your legs to control gas and brake. Good luck if you have no limbs though.
Wow, that is really cool. To see a large corporation put out something that will be a small volume of sales with really helpful features is heartwarming. My tiny, cold heart needed that. As someone who had a Dad who was heading towards being wheelchair bound, this is actually really cool. I wish other companies did that kind of thing. I have volunteered to do adaptive skiing with people who would never slide on snow otherwise. Good fun. I can imagine someone enjoying a curvy road at speeds much more dynamic than what they would experience in their chair. Bravo Mazda.
Hand control all the things!
Could they sell it here too?
I’m asking, because as someone in the stupid tall club, I cannot fit into the current MX-5. There’s these damn metal protrusions that get in the way of my feet.
I’m 6’4, is it safe to say I’m also in the stupid tall club?
I drive a GTI and it works perfectly for me, have had my eye on the MX-5 for a while but I’ve never actually been in one.
I wish they made sports car for stupid tall people (I am 6’+) 🙁
I also wish I fit in an MX-5: they’re so fun!
I barely fit in my ’98 Civic coupe. I have literally 0″ of headroom, unless I lean the seat too far back to see out of the windows properly.
During my search for a fun RWD coupe I wound up in an early 00s 911 and it happily fits my torso-heavy self. The footwell is also comfortable. I think I may be built like their engineers and testers, though.
I would say I am in the average tall club at 6′ and I had a 96 NA for 7 years and never had a problem fitting with the top up. Was perfectly comfortable to me.
This is awesome and I bet it’s fun in its own right with the hand throttle/brake control that seems kind of like something from an old fighter plane.
A couple of decades ago a friend of mine had a Saab 900 Turbo with hand controls, but it was a 5-speed manual (the clutch was its only pedal, so for someone who had lost his right leg, it had a lever for the right hand with a grip-throttle, like a motorcycle). My buddy wasn’t disabled, just found it as an absolute bargain when he needed a car.
Good for Mazda. I would like to see a picture of a wheelchair stowed in the car because I’m having a hard time envisioning it.
The late CEO of a company I formerly worked at specced himself a hand controlled 3rd gen Viper that he was able to drive with his disability.
It was actually written up in one of the major car mags 2 decades ago but I can no longer find the article.
This rules.
“I’m here for one of those hand-controlled Miatas.”
“OK…but sir, did you just cut your legs off on purpose?”
“53 pounds lighter.”
“Can I get you a towel?”
“Zoom zoom.”
I’m probably going to Hell for laughing at that.
Oh, who am I kidding. I was headed there anyway.
Nah, you’re fine. Not a joke at the expense of the disabled. It’s at the expense of the obsessive 🙂
Porsche would have worked, too. Or Lotus.
Porsche would have charged you for the weight reduction.
I’ll save you a seat. See you there!
COTD.
Mazda in the US also offers a $1,000 rebate on any new vehicle vehicle towards the installation of adaptability or driving aid equipment. It explicitly says all vehicles, so theoretically Mazda would give you 1k back for this equipment even on a manual Miata should you find someone who can do it. Not sure if other automakers do this, but it’s cool to see even a small gesture towards getting people with disabilities on the road, given how expensive wheelchair retrofit vans are.
I was doubtful that manual hand controls were even possible, so I looked it up.
Wow they’re funky! Reminds me of motorcycle controls except they’re in a car
Ford, GM and whatever you want to call them offer similar rebates and have for decades as my brother has taken advantage of the program a couple of times.