New York 2014: Mazda Skyactiv Chassis Live Shots

Cameron Aubernon
by Cameron Aubernon

While Mazda’s new MX-5 Miata’s debut will have to wait another day, the iconic roadster’s new Skyactiv Chassis made the rounds at the 2014 New York Auto Show.

As demonstrated, the new chassis places the engine further back toward the center while providing the upcoming Miata with a lower center of gravity and 220 pounds in weight savings over the outgoing chassis. Front and rear suspensions have been reworked, and steering improvements have been made, including the introduction of electric power steering.



Cameron Aubernon
Cameron Aubernon

Seattle-based writer, blogger, and photographer for many a publication. Born in Louisville. Raised in Kansas. Where I lay my head is home.

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  • Robc123 Robc123 on Apr 17, 2014

    Me trying to keep an open mind- What production (drivers) car ever made was made better by electric steering?

    • See 1 previous
    • MBella MBella on Apr 18, 2014

      @bumpy ii I'm pretty sure that it's zero. I am not aware of any car sold today with manual steering.

  • Qest Qest on Apr 19, 2014

    How do we know power steering won't be optional?

  • 3-On-The-Tree My experience with turbos is that they don’t give good mpg.
  • GregLocock They will unless you don't let them. Every car manufacturing country around the world protects their local manufacturers by a mixture of legal and quasi legal measures. The exception was Australia which used to be able to design and manufacture every component in a car (slight exaggeration) and did so for many years protected by local design rules and enormous tariffs. In a fit of ideological purity the tariffs were removed and the industry went down the plughole, as predicted. This was followed by the precision machine shops who made the tooling, and then the aircraft maintenance business went because the machine shops were closed. Also of course many of the other suppliers closed.The Chinese have the following advantagesSlave laborCheap electricityZero respect for IPLong term planning
  • MaintenanceCosts Yes, and our response is making it worse.In the rest of the world, all legacy brands are soon going to be what Volvo is today: a friendly Western name on products built more cheaply in China or in companies that are competing with China from the bottom on the cost side (Vietnam, India, etc.) This is already more or less the case in the Chinese market, will soon be the case in other Asian markets, and is eventually coming to the EU market.We are going to try to resist in the US market with politicians' crack - that is, tariffs. Economists don't really disagree on tariffs anymore. Their effect is to depress overall economic activity while sharply raising consumer prices in the tariff-imposing jurisdiction.The effect will be that we will mostly drive U.S.-built cars, but they will be inferior to those built in the rest of the world and will cost 3x-4x as much. Are you ready for your BMW X5 to be three versions old and cost $200k? Because on the current path that is what's coming. It may be overpriced crap that can't be sold in any other world market, but, hey, it was built in South Carolina.The right way to resist would be to try to form our own alliances with the low-cost producers, in which we open our markets to them while requiring adherence to basic labor and environmental standards. But Uncle Joe isn't quite ready to sign that kind of trade agreement, while the orange guy just wants to tell those countries to GFY and hitch up with China if they want a friend.
  • CEastwood Thy won't get recruits who want to become police officers . They'll get nuts who want to become The Green Hornet .
  • 1995 SC I stand by my assessment that Toyota put a bunch of "seasoned citizens" that cared not one iota about cars, asked them what they wanted and built it. This was the result. This thing makes a Honda Crosstour or whatever it was look like a Jag E type by comparison.
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