Woke up this morning to find an invitation from Mazda to a “secret presentation” of the new Powered Retractable Hard Top Roadster. Wow!! I was out the door before you could say “zoom-zoom” and headed straight to the dealer to CHECK IT OUT. And there it was sitting in the middle of the showroom. WTF?! Some secret presentation! Anyway, I had plenty of time to examine the new car, opening and closing the top over and over again until I got sick of doing it. The build is very solid and better than I expected. When closed the cabin is as quiet as a Royal Saloon Crown. I was all excited at first but made sure that I got it completely out of my system before the salesguy asked me if I wanted an estimate. While very nice, I’m not going to trade in my NC just for this feature. The price difference between this version and the softtop is not as great as I expected so I think they’ll be selling a lot of these in the coming months.
I find it amusing that they have the same color schema in Japan as in Canada (ie: Bright orange seats and plastic trim inside).
Roy, have you driven the Mazda RX-8 yet? If you think you sit low in the MX-5, you should try sitting in the RX-8. Wow. I lit the tires up at the Mazda dealership (with the salesman in the car btw) a few months ago. I love the car…but the engine revs to about 9,500 rpm..unbelievable.
Stoneman
Well, they all come from the same factory in Hiroshima so its not a surprise that they have the same color/trim.
I don’t know what RX-8 you were driving but the ride height is no where near as low as in a MX-5 Roadster.
Waaah! Must go to Mazda showroom when in Tokyo!
Were they doing test drives?
It was a 2004 RX-8. I know it’s lower, because I almost bottomed it out going down a ramp onto the road. Driving the MX-5, it is higher. I’ll visit my Mazda dealer and measure it.
Stoneman
OK you’re talking about ground clearance (ride height) I thought you were refering to how low the seat was inside the actually vehicle or where your eye level is relative to the ground.
Well that would just depend on what springs were in the car. I put some low down springs on my car and I have to be careful of bottoming it out too. But I don’t think the stock RX-8 is any lower than the MX-5.
I’ll make a prediction. I say starting from the next generation, all MX-5’s will be PRHT.