Quite some time ago I mentioned the Mazda MX-5 Miata on my short list of cars I’m in the market for. Today I finally got to drive one, and though it was an automatic and therefore disqualified, I got a good enough feel for it to realize that for me the car just doesn’t work.
1990-1997 MX-5 “NA”. Photo from edmunds.com.
Put quite simply, I barely fit. I have legroom, and I have room width-wise, but I had to slouch just so I could see when I was sitting in the car. It’s a problem when your optimal seating position has you looking at the top of the windshield frame. For reference, picture your car when it’s frozen in winter, and how the windshield defrosts from the bottom up. Since you’re too lazy to just scrape the windshield, you’re driving with whatever the car has already defrosted for you which means you’re not using the top of the windshield like you normally would.
1999-2005 MX-5 “NB”. Photo from edmunds.com.
Now take that feeling of hunching over to see where you’re going and imagine having to do that all the time. The car I drove was a 1999 (shown above), so it was the first year of the refreshed body styles with the fixed headlights. Honestly I prefer the NA version (top) with the flip headlights except that the NB was a fairly substantial update, adding a glass rear window among other things. One thing that did not change was the size, so the NB and NA are equally unfitting.
2006- MX-5 “NC”. Photo from edmunds.com.
On the other hand, there’s the brand new NC MX-5, which is absolutely awesome. Not only is it beautiful, it’s also substantially larger without losing the feel of the original. And while I don’t see the Miata as being a good choice at this point (a shame), it will be the first “third car” we’ll consider (hopefully it will have reached the sub-$10K price range). Until then, the Miata is stricken from the list.