Miata Is Still Always The Answer

I’ve been trying to think of a car that’s been iteratively improved for as long as the Miata (or MX-5 if you prefer) without becoming a fundamentally different car. The F-150 is an incredible truck and, yet, you’d never mistake a new one for a ’90s model, let alone one from the ’60s.

A Porsche 911? Amazingly fun and capable, in every generation, serving approximately the same audience and purpose no matter which one you buy. Even then, a 993 generation 911 does not feel like a 996, which does not feel like a 991. They’re all 911s and they’re all amazing, but they’ve grown bigger and nicer over time. That’s generally a good thing.

Mazda has somehow nailed making four generations of Miata without aggressively changing the formula. If you park an ND Miata next to an NA Miata they are both entirely the same layout and roughly the same size (the wheelbase has increased by less than two inches). Even with all the new options and safety equipment the newest soft top, magically, is within a few hundred pounds depending on trim and that added heft is more than compensated for by an increase in horsepower.

I borrowed a 2024 Miata MX-5 in Grand Touring trim, with the six-speed, for a trip up to Lime Rock Park. I’d heard from friends that changes to the steering rack and LSD resulted in an even better Miata. This made me nervous. It’s not hard to imagine Mazda making a Miata so good that it’s no longer quite a Miata.

As usual, I was worried about nothing. The 2024 Miata is, indeed, better than the old one, while still being every bit a Miata.

The Basics

Never has the term “the basics” been more appropriate, for even in the highest-end Grand Touring trim the Miata is still one four-cylinder engine connected via either a manual or automatic transmission to the rear wheels.

• As-tested price: $36,200 (with $1,165 in delivery/handling fees)
• Powertrain: 2.0-liter DOHC inline-four
• Transmission: Six-speed manual
• Combined power: 181 hp/151 lb.-ft. of torque
• MPG: 26 mpg city, 34 mpg hwy, 29 mpg combined
• Only option: $750 for Snowflake White over Tan Nappa interior
• Thing you definitely couldn’t have spec’d on an NA Miata: rear cross-traffic alert

What Did They Change And Should You Be Mad About It?

I was up at Lime Rock Park ostensibly to help Parker with his Lucid experiment, so I’d have been fine driving up in my Honda CR-V Hybrid. Thinking it would be a nice day I instead ordered up a new MX-5. This was the correct choice.

Lime Rock Park sits like a pat of butter nestled in mashed potatoes, though in this analogy the mashed potatoes are the Taconic Mountains, which are a part of the northern end of the Appalachians. If you drive a little further north and east you’ll hit the Berkshires.

Normally, the smoke coming from the Massachusetts side of the border is of the jam band sort and usually not anything to worry about. On the day I was up at Lime Rock the whole place smelled like a campfire and what I took to be a National Guard Blackhawk helicopter circled overhead a few times before flying towards wildfires in the area.

The dull white smoke in the low winter sun collecting in the little valley only enhanced the golden hues and made even my iPhone photos look good, but I’m getting pretty damn tired of running into wildfires everywhere I go (Texas, California, the Catskills just the weekend before). This is a bad sort of change.

A better sort of change is the revised steering system in the new Miata. If there’s one issue people had with the initial version of the ND platform (this is, in Miata parlance, the ND3) it was the electrical steering. Whenever sports cars drop hydraulic steering this happens. People freaked out about the way the 991 felt compared to the 997 911 and then mostly got over it as subsequent iterations added more feel back into the wheel.

When I drove the GR86 my sense was that its steering was better than the last Miata I’d driven, though there was enough of a gap in time that it was hard to say for sure. Now that Mazda has improved the steering I feel more comfortable in saying the initial ND1/ND2 steering is probably less communicative. Not only does the new steering provide more feedback, it’s also an improvement on the interstate, where the Miata floats a little less at over 65 mph than the older iterations.

The other notable improvement is a new differential. None of these changes should make you mad unless maybe you have an ND1 Miata.

The Return Of Yaw-Damping

As super engineer Dave Coleman points out in the interview above, the ND is an old ass car by modern standards (it’s been around for basically a decade at this point) so Mazda has been able to make small changes they wouldn’t usually be able to make. As he points out, the pre-load on the limited-slip differential in the first two iterations of this platform was too high, which would upset the car during trail braking.

Is yaw-damping back? Yes, yaw-damping is back. I learned about this concept when I drove the AWD CX-70 and now it’s come back up again with the new RWD MX5. In the ND3, what this means is that there’s more lock-up on corner entry so you’re more stable as you roll into a turn, and a little less lock-up on corner exit so the car will hopefully stay pointed where you think it’s supposed to point as you drive out of the corner. It’s why they call it an “asymmetric” limited-slip differential.

Dave is both smarter than I am and a better driver so you can watch the interview if you want more. In practice, this means that I could shove the MX-5 hard into the tight corners of the FCP Euro Proving Grounds autocross course and then blast out of them without the nose popping up and understeering myself into the grass. Not like I’ve ever done that there before … on this exact track … in a RWD sports car. Nope. Not I.

It’s Just A Happy Golden Retriever Puppy You Can Enjoy Every Day

Parker was kind enough to pay for Lime Rock Park’s excellent catering and so all of his friends abandoned the track for an hour to eat. I shoved some food in my mouth and then proceeded to eat three chocolate chip cookies before deciding to take as many laps as I could sneak in on the autocross before everyone else came back.

I should have driven first and eaten second, but I refer you to the earlier statement about me not being that smart. I also lack impulse control when it comes to cookies and sports cars.

A Miata is just so much fun. Especially a convertible when you’re wearing a helmet. While 181 horsepower is paltry by modern standards, the high-revving four sounds better than it should in the open air. The car is so light and the gearbox so predictable that even an uncoordinated, chocolate-filled pretender like myself can at least feel like I’m wringing 98% out of the car.

A smarter man would have stopped before he felt like he was going to fill his Bell helmet with regurgitated cookies. I did not. I just kept lapping until I felt like I was a turn away from barfing.

Later in the day I gave a couple of Parker’s crew a ride around the track in the car and they all looked at me like I was a hero. I was not! Mostly I was just oversteering the car necessarily and driving like the steering wheel was connected directly to my testicles. Fast driving doesn’t always feel fast, but oversteer almost always does.

Many cars are faster than a Miata. A few are lighter. The car I drove before this one on the same track was a vintage Alfa Giulia set up for racing, which is a truly visceral experience. The Miata wasn’t any less enjoyable, really, and it also comes with CarPlay and a functioning air-conditioner.

Inside, the cabin feels modern enough and it even has an almost usable cupholder attachment (it only fell out twice!). HVAC controls are of the tactile kind, which is good because you never want to take your eyes off the road in Miata. The “touchscreen” remains a non-touchscreen when using Mazda’s infotainemnt functions, but becomes a touchscreen when using CarPlay, which is a choice you quickly get used to.

The trunk is big enough to hold a racing helmet, a toothbrush, some toothpaste, and possibly even a flannel for your face. If you wish to add new shoes and a case, you’ll want to make sure it’s a small one.

And that’s the point. If you don’t have kids or big dogs or other such attachments, you can drive this thing every day. If you’re lucky enough that your life is enriched (or encumbered) by an abundance of loved ones, you could easily make this a second car to enjoy on weekends.

If You Can Find A Better New Convertible Sports Car For Under $38k, Buy It

There’s that Internet cliche about the perfect two-car garage, where someone sees a Suburban parked next to a Lotus and says “perfect two-car garage.” I think that’s true of the Miata and any other car, including another Miata.

ND3 Miata and NA Miata? Perfect two-car garage!

Miata has long been the answer for every car need because the cars are approachable enough to be enjoyed by anyone, affordable enough to be used in whatever perverse way you can imagine, and commonplace enough that no one will be mad when you modify it to your liking.

The new one is just a little better than the one that came before it, so I can say with confidence that the Miata is still the answer… so long as you’re willing to ask the right question.

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All photos by the author unless otherwise noted.