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Mazda MX-5 Miata NA vs Mazda MX-5 Miata ND Showdown

Turning steel and glass into adrenaline and emotion isn’t just alchemy. It is what every sports car manufacturer wants to deliver, the type of four-wheeled contraption you drive for the fun of it all with an evil mischievous smirk plastered onto your face. One member of this rarefied subspecies is the Mazda MX-5 Miata, any MX-5 Miata to be quite frank.
Mazda MX-5 Miata ND vs Mazda Miata MX-5 NA 1 photo
Photo: screenshot from Youtube
It all started in the 1980s, when some Mazda higher-ups and engineers got the idea “Hey, let’s create the best two-seater roadster yet!” In the Japanese brand’s case, that translated into a cheap to buy and cheap to run rear-wheel drive car that took inspiration from the best roadsters ever made, including the Lotus Elan.

The first-generation of the MX-5 Miata is referred to as the NA, and it’s an interesting bit of kit. Compared to an Elan or other classics like the Triumph Spitfire and Alfa Romeo Spider, the original MX-5 Miata had bulletproof reliability. For a car that was developed in the late ‘80s and was sold in the U.S. of A. for just $14,000, that’s astounding in every imaginable way.

Despite the effeminate styling, those pop-up headlights and small, skinny tires were enough to get a driving enthusiast’s blood boiling. Oh, the 940-kilogram (2,070 lbs) curb weight was another highlight of the original MX-5 Miata, as was the availability of a precise stick shift.

Now at its fourth-generation, the little bugger is the best-selling two-seater convertible sports car ever made. Guinness approved. But there’s 25 years between the two siblings and the Mazda MX-5 Miata ND is laden with hi-tech manufacturing solutions, efficient drivetrain technologies and stuff that wasn’t relevant in the late late ‘80s and early ‘90s.

The thing is, did all of this modern mumbo jumbo make the fourth-generation MX-5 less fun to drive than its honorable predecessor? With a 4-second head start for the NA on a 3.2-kilomenter (2 miles) track in Spain, let’s see just how fast and fun the one they call the ND is.

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About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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