When it was introduced back in the summer of 1989, the 1990 Mazda MX-5 Miata filled a market hole big enough to shove a half-century's worth of affordable British and Italian sporting roadsters into. Through the 1970s and '80s, affordable sports cars were dropping like flies, and reasonably so. They all had lousy reputations for mechanical reliability, they were all ancient designs, and if left out in something called "rain" they would rust through in an afternoon.
What Mazda did with the Mazda MX-5 Miata was simply take all the virtues of a classic, small, open two-seat roadster and then engineer a bulletproof, Japanese-made, rear-drive car to carry them.
The actual design of the original Mazda Miata was done in California at Mazda's styling studio there. Though some have criticized the looks as something less than original, in fact the lines could hardly have been tidier or more appropriate to the machine. There's no excess metal on the first Miata and its unibody structure couldn't have been stiffer or more solid. And the first Mazda Miata was truly tiny, running on a mere 89.2-inch wheelbase and stretching out just 155.2 inches overall.
But the best thing about that first Mazda MX-5 Miata is that it weighed in at just 2,105 pounds in base trim. So what if the 1.6-liter DOHC 16-valve four only made 116 horsepower. Throw in a snick-snick five-speed manual transmission and that was enough for the Miata to be ludicrously entertaining. The Mazda Miata was an instant hit.
A second-generation Mazda Miata appeared for the 1999 model year and, rare for a second-generation car, it didn't grow in size. However, the engine did grow to 1.8 liters in size and horsepower was now a rambunctious 140. In sum, the Mazda Miata only got better.
Mazda has wisely updated the Mazda MX-5 Miata over the years, but it's hewn closely to the car's original idea, too. When it was completely redesigned for the 2006 model year it only grew enough to contain all the airbags and equipment a 21st-century car must. The third-generation Mazda Miata was, however, still instantly recognizable as a Miata.
