Don’t worry Mazda hasn’t mucked up the evergreen appeal of its best selling MX-5. It looks a little different and features an array of mechanical enhancements but the purity of its dynamics appeal remains untainted. It’s still a brilliantly engaging drive. When it arrives in May, we had a very early drive in a pre production 2.0 liter roadster, the 2009 MX-5 will wear a new big mouth grille, different foglamp housings, new sills, bumpers and new taillights. The cabin enjoys a few changes, grippier Recaro seats, a more powerful Bose stereo, new dials and the knee bruising cup holders in the doors are now much smaller. The 2.0 liter engine gets a forged crankshaft, fully floating pistons and revised valve springing to hike the red line by 500 rpm to 7500 rpm. Power and torque remain the same at 160 bhp and 130 lb ft. Modifying the front and lower ball joints has lowered the suspension’s roll centre by 26mm for enhanced steering feel and agility, while the manual six speeder gets reworked for shorter throws and there’s now a six speed auto, although Mazda UK is not sure if we will it here. The engine’s acoustics have also been tuned for melodic roof down motoring.
What hasn’t changed is the MX-5’s ideal 50:50 weight balance, loquacious steering and up for it chassis. Any road, any speed, the Mazda feels alert, changing direction in that inertia free way that only light weight cars with perfect balance can. The suspension changes mean the MX-5’s nose swings into corners with new keenness, so you can string together corners with such accuracy that you will want to stop, turn around and do it again.
