New York 2014: 25 Years Of Miatas

Derek Kreindler
by Derek Kreindler

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Mazda MX-5, Mazda brought out a number of historically significant Miatas. Some, like the Coupe Concept (above), the Mazdaspeed MX-5 and the Super 20 are well known.

But how about the 500,000th car produced, or the 1998 prototype that eventually became the 1999 Miata? They’re all in the gallery below.






Derek Kreindler
Derek Kreindler

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  • Suto Suto on Apr 17, 2014

    Someone needs to open the hood and pull on the upper edges of the headlight doors a bit, get that hood flush. Looking forward to seeing if the new one really is light and not bloated (how the hell is a Cruze/Focus 3200 lbs? And they still poor rear headroom). Newish owner of a turbo'd 92 here. It seems Mazda fixed its rust issues around 2008, or maybe those cars are still too new. Anyone with a newer Mazda have the wheel well rust? My 2003 Protege has holes in it.

  • LeMansteve LeMansteve on Apr 17, 2014

    I have wondered why Mazda never made a coupe or hatchback version of the Miata. Perhaps it is a matter of high development costs and relatively low market potential and the manufacturing direction had to be convertible or coupe, but not both. BMW did it for a few years with the Z3 and Z4, and so did Pontiac for a very brief time with the Solstice.

    • JMII JMII on Apr 17, 2014

      Agree, plus someone above stated there should be a shooting brake Miata or at the very least a Miata hatch. There is a conversion kit out there but I've never seen one in the flesh. I'm not a fan of convertibles but a Miata hatch would all kinds of awesome. Or maybe Nissan could just make a lighter version of my Z.

  • Varezhka Maybe the volume was not big enough to really matter anyways, but losing a “passenger car” for a mostly “light truck” line-up should help Subaru with their CAFE numbers too.
  • Varezhka For this category my car of choice would be the CX-50. But between the two cars listed I’d select the RAV4 over CR-V. I’ve always preferred NA over small turbos and for hybrids THS’ longer history shows in its refinement.
  • AZFelix I would suggest a variation on the 'fcuk, marry, kill' game using 'track, buy, lease' with three similar automotive selections.
  • Formula m For the gas versions I like the Honda CRV. Haven’t driven the hybrids yet.
  • SCE to AUX All that lift makes for an easy rollover of your $70k truck.
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