Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the anguish of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and raunchy out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the most powerful by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The strongest softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the rubber hood, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Legitimate.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Legitimate.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you rival in gymkhanas.

Even tho’ this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously hammers the manuals with its Three.4-second leap from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some assets roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squash the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for suspending taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at utter throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you appreciative that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF truly isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the agony inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a petite cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the naked minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that movability.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then comeback to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the agony of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and raunchy out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the most powerful by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The strongest softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the rubber hood, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Legitimate.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Legitimate.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you contest in gymkhanas.

Even tho’ this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously hits the manuals with its Three.4-second hop from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some assets roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squeeze the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for dangling taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at utter throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you grateful that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF truly isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the ache inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a petite cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the naked minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that maneuverability.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then comeback to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the anguish of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and rough out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the strongest by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The most intense softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the bondage mask, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Legal.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Eighteen.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you rival in gymkhanas.

Even tho’ this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously hammers the manuals with its Three.4-second leap from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some assets roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squeeze the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for stringing up taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at total throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you appreciative that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF indeed isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the anguish inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a petite cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the naked minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that maneuverability.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then comeback to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the agony of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and harsh out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the most intense by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The strongest softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the bondage mask, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Legitimate.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Legitimate.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you contest in gymkhanas.

Even however this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously strikes the manuals with its Three.4-second leap from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some figure roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squash the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for draping taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at utter throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you grateful that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF truly isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the ache inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a puny cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the nude minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that movement.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then comeback to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the ache of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and rough out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the most powerful by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The strongest softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the rubber hood, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Legitimate.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Legitimate.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you contest in gymkhanas.

Even tho’ this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously hammers the manuals with its Three.4-second leap from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some assets roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squeeze the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for suspending taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at total throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you appreciative that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF indeed isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the agony inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a puny cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the nude minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that movability.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then come back to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the anguish of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and raunchy out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the strongest by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The most intense softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the fetish mask, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Legitimate.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Legitimate.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you challenge in gymkhanas.

Even tho’ this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously hits the manuals with its Three.4-second hop from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some bod roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squash the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for draping taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at total throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you appreciative that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF indeed isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the agony inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a puny cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the nude minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that movability.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then come back to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the anguish of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and rough out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the most powerful by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The most intense softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the spandex hood, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Legal.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Legal.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you contest in gymkhanas.

Even however this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously hits the manuals with its Trio.4-second leap from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some bod roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squeeze the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for draping taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at total throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you appreciative that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF indeed isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the agony inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a puny cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the nude minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that motility.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then come back to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the ache of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and raunchy out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the most powerful by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The most intense softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the rubber hood, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Legal.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Legitimate.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you challenge in gymkhanas.

Even however this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously hits the manuals with its Three.4-second hop from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some figure roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squeeze the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for dangling taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at utter throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you grateful that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF indeed isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the ache inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a petite cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the nude minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that mobility.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then come back to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the anguish of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and raunchy out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the most powerful by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The most powerful softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the spandex hood, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Eighteen.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Eighteen.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you contest in gymkhanas.

Even tho’ this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously strikes the manuals with its Trio.4-second hop from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some figure roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squash the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for draping taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at utter throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you appreciative that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF indeed isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the ache inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a petite cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the naked minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that mobility.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then come back to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the anguish of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and raunchy out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the most powerful by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The most intense softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the spandex hood, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Legitimate.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Eighteen.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you rival in gymkhanas.

Even tho’ this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously hammers the manuals with its Three.4-second hop from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some assets roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squeeze the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for draping taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at utter throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you appreciative that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF truly isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the anguish inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a puny cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the nude minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that movement.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then come back to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the ache of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and rough out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the strongest by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The most intense softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the fetish mask, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Legitimate.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Eighteen.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you rival in gymkhanas.

Even tho’ this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously hits the manuals with its Trio.4-second leap from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some bod roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squash the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for dangling taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at total throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you grateful that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF indeed isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the agony inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a puny cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the nude minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that movement.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then comeback to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the agony of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and rough out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the most intense by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The most intense softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the fetish mask, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Legitimate.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Legitimate.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you contest in gymkhanas.

Even tho’ this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously hits the manuals with its Three.4-second hop from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some bod roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squash the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for dangling taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at utter throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you appreciative that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF truly isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the anguish inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a puny cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the nude minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that maneuverability.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then comeback to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the agony of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and rough out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the most powerful by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The most powerful softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the rubber hood, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Legal.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Eighteen.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you rival in gymkhanas.

Even however this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously hits the manuals with its Three.4-second leap from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some figure roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squeeze the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for draping taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at total throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you appreciative that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF truly isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the ache inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a petite cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the nude minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that maneuverability.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then comeback to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the agony of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and rough out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the most intense by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The most intense softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the fetish mask, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Legitimate.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Eighteen.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you rival in gymkhanas.

Even however this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously hammers the manuals with its Trio.4-second hop from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some assets roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squeeze the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for draping taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at utter throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you grateful that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF indeed isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the agony inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a petite cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the naked minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that movement.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then comeback to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the anguish of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and harsh out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the most powerful by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The most powerful softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the fetish mask, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Eighteen.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Legal.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you rival in gymkhanas.

Even however this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously hammers the manuals with its Three.4-second hop from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some assets roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squash the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for dangling taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at utter throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you grateful that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF indeed isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the ache inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a petite cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the nude minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that maneuverability.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then comeback to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the anguish of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and rough out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the most powerful by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The most powerful softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the spandex hood, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Legitimate.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Legal.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you challenge in gymkhanas.

Even tho’ this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously strikes the manuals with its Three.4-second leap from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some assets roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squash the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for suspending taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at total throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you grateful that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF indeed isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the anguish inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a petite cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the naked minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that maneuverability.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then comeback to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the agony of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and harsh out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the strongest by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The strongest softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the fetish mask, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Eighteen.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Legal.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you contest in gymkhanas.

Even tho’ this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously strikes the manuals with its Trio.4-second leap from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some assets roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squash the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for suspending taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at utter throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you grateful that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF indeed isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the anguish inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a puny cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the naked minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that movability.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then come back to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the agony of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and rough out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the most powerful by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The strongest softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the fetish mask, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Legal.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Legitimate.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you challenge in gymkhanas.

Even tho’ this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously hammers the manuals with its Three.4-second hop from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some assets roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squeeze the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for dangling taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at total throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you grateful that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF indeed isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the anguish inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a puny cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the nude minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that motility.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then comeback to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the agony of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and raunchy out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the most powerful by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The strongest softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the fetish mask, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Legal.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Legitimate.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you challenge in gymkhanas.

Even tho’ this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously hammers the manuals with its Three.4-second leap from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some bod roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squeeze the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for stringing up taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at total throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you appreciative that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF truly isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the ache inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a petite cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the nude minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that mobility.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then comeback to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Reviews – Mazda MX-5 Miata Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Car and Driver

Tested: two thousand seventeen Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Grand Touring Manual

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Manual

• May 2017
• By DON SHERMAN
• Photography By CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Roadster owners living in frigid climes often tuck away their cars for the winter. Doing so extends the life of the convertible top, prevents road-salt corrosion, and saves the interior from slush and grit contamination. Winter storage also saves the driver from the ache of a chilly cabin, wind whistling past weather seals, and flapping-canvas racket.

But what if your roadster is your only rail? Then you have little choice but to don mittens, climb on winter tires, and raunchy out the frosty months. Or you could cast your lot with a Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, which offers two-seat convertibility year-round.

In our eyes, this is a targa with sail panels. But since Porsche is understandably reluctant to share its registered “Targa” trademark, Mazda had to coin its own name for this version of the fourth-generation MX-5 Miata. It went with RF—code for “retractable fastback.” The RF costs $3005 more than a softtop in Grand Touring trim and $2755 more as the Club version; there’s no base Sport model on the RF like there is on the softtop.

Our Club test car had a base price of $32,430 and was optioned with the $3400 Brembo/BBS package consisting of 17-inch BBS forged-aluminum wheels, proximity entry, and Brembo front rotors and calipers. That yielded an entirely reasonable $35,830 bottom line. (A port-installed appearance package available separately for $800 and consisting of a front splitter, a rear spoiler, side-sill extensions, and a rear bumper skirt—all finished in bright black—is included with the Brembo package.) We also tested a Grand Touring model, which rang in at $33,795, the only option being $300 metallic paint.

The power-operated-top equipment effects subtle switches in the Miata’s driving dynamics. Trips to the test track and our local back-road route gave us the pertinent details you’ll need to pick the top style that’s best for you.

The Club RF shown in these photos is the sixth ND-generation MX-5 we’ve tested—and the most intense by forty six to one hundred twenty pounds (the Grand Touring RF is another six pounds stronger). The strongest softtop, a Grand Touring tooled with an automatic transmission, weighed two thousand three hundred eighty three pounds. The lightest was a 2309-pound six-speed-manual Club. This six-speed RF weighed a reasonable two thousand four hundred twenty nine pounds, in part because the fetish mask, the decklid, the front fenders, and the forward roof panel are aluminum, and the sail panels are molded plastic.

Playing with Gravity

Nosey about how the Miata’s center of gravity height migrates according to top material and position, we logged these measurements:

• ND Club softtop with the roof up/down: Legal.Five/17.Five inches

• ND Club RF with the roof up/down: Nineteen.Five/Legal.0 inches

Bottom line: Drop the top when you rival in gymkhanas.

Even however this car is almost exactly one hundred pounds stronger than the very first ND MX-5 we tested two years ago, it set the same zero-to-60-mph time of 6.1 seconds and an identical 14.8-second quarter-mile sprint at ninety three mph. The quickest MX-5 we’ve seen is our current long-term softtop, which leapt to sixty in Five.8 seconds, clipping 0.Two 2nd off the quarter-mile ET while adding one mph to the above trap speed. In summary, you could cover the acceleration spectacle range for all seven of the MX-5s we’ve tested with a baby’s blanket.

Top-gear 30-to-50-mph passing times vary inbetween 8.Four and Ten.7 seconds, with this stronger RF toward the slow end with a 9.6-second time. The same is true of the top-gear 50-to-70-mph run, which also takes 9.6 seconds, versus the softtop’s 8.4-second best and Ten.6-second worst. For the record, the six-speed automatic, which offers expeditious downshifts, obviously hits the manuals with its Trio.4-second hop from thirty to fifty mph and its Four.5-second hop from fifty to 70.

Retractable Data

All MX-5s exhibit some bod roll at the cornering limit, part of the car-to-driver dialogue Mazda engineers baked into the recipe. The body’s list is noticeable only when you squeeze the last mph out of a traffic circle, and it’s never that objectionable. On back roads, the limit arrives in the form of slightly squirrely understeer after you’ve used up your 0.89-g grip allotment. The RF’s extra weight and higher center of gravity had little or no influence on the skidpad spectacle, which fell exactly in the middle of the 0.88 to 0.90 g we’ve measured on softtop MX-5s. Credit the 205/45R-17 Bridgestone Potenza S001 tires for draping taut.

The largest spectacle switch we noted was in braking, where the Club RF stopped from seventy mph in a longish one hundred seventy one feet, versus the one hundred fifty eight to one hundred fifty nine feet we logged for four of the roadsters we’ve tested. There was no significant deviation in successive stops or any hint of fade. In fact, this MX-5’s high, hard, and lightly modulated brake pedal is one of its most endearing features. The Club’s longer stopping distances likely can be chalked up to an anomaly or an especially dusty surface on that day, because the Grand Touring RF stopped in one hundred sixty one feet.

Mazda wisely refrained from packing its Miatas with weighty sound deadening, to help extract maximum zing from the MX-5’s naturally aspirated Two.0-liter inline-four. This is a spirited powerplant, with one hundred fifty five horsepower on tap at six thousand rpm, no turbocharger to take the edge off the harass note, and a 6800-rpm redline. The engine’s secret weapon is a hearty low end with sufficient thrust above three thousand rpm so that the boomy resonance that arrives beyond five thousand rpm can be saved for special occasions. As in the convertibles we’ve tested, the RF registered an ear-tickling eighty eight decibels at utter throttle, lodging down to seventy five decibels during cruising. In sixth, with the throttle eased back, the driveline growl combines with tire and wind noise to make you grateful that Mazda tooled this RF with a powerful nine-speaker Bose sound system as standard equipment. Bottom line: The RF indeed isn’t any quieter in normal use than the softtop MX-5.

The Sports Car Life

Some of the agony inherent to classic sports cars clearly is alive and well here. Even with both windows up, the wind will tie your hair in knots any time you venture beyond fifty mph with the roof panels stowed. The cockpit provides rudimentary cupholders and a petite cubby space to stash your keys and phone, but it has no door pockets or traditional glovebox. The 12-volt power source for radar detectors and navigation units is hidden at the far forward reaches of the passenger’s footwell.

In truth, all Miatas are throwbacks, with creature comforts held to the naked minimum. This keeps the concentrate on unspoiled driving joy delivered with every snick of the shifter and each increment of steering lock. When Mazda introduced this vast improvement on the archetypal British sports car almost thirty years ago, the world became a genuinely better place. Having a choice inbetween two styles of convertible top only seconds that mobility.

Top Tidbit: RF, a.k.a. “Roof Folds”

Underneath the RF’s demi-fastback addendum hides an adaptation of the MX-5’s old power-retractable hardtop mechanism, only with quieter actuators and fastback-like buttresses instead of a tonneau cover. Flicking a dashboard switch lifts the fastback up and back while the front panel unlatches and accordions behind the seats along with the rear panel and the back window. The buttresses then come back to their original position. To spare the top’s spindly arms and actuators, the dance is limited to sub-6-mph spectacles.

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