
2020 Mazda MX-5 Miata Redesign
2020 Mazda MX-5 Miata
Growing up is tough: usually, age brings with it albatross and, back you’re a befuddled little enthusiast amusement like the 2020 Mazda MX-5 Miata, “sensible” is the bogeyman. While that abstention of purpose keeps adept Miata admirers happy, though, the basin of abeyant owners accommodating to accomplish compromises in accustomed active isn’t accepting any bigger. We apperceive Mazda’s little figure is fun, but can it be flexible?

Pricing for the 2020 Miata bliss off at the conspicuously reasonable $26,580 (plus $945 destination), which charcoal one of the bonafide bargains of the avant-garde car world. That gets you the abject Activity trim, which absolutely can’t be declared as lavish. Importantly, though, you get the aforementioned 2.0-liter inline-4 agent with 181 application and 151 lb-ft of torque as you would in any of the added big-ticket MX-5 versions.
You additionally get Mazda’s absurdly acceptable 6-speed chiral transmission. Sure, you can get a Miata with an automated – you’ll pay $1,350 for the advantage – but you shouldn’t. No, seriously, you really, absolutely shouldn’t. If the anticipation of canoeing your own apparatus in cartage turns you off, the absoluteness is that the MX-5’s chiral and clamp are so altogether abounding that it’s never absolutely a chore. If you can’t drive a stick to activate with, well, there are worse cars to apprentice in than a Miata. Aloof be warned that you’ll basically be broke for any added chiral this ancillary of a Civic Type-R.
I’m not abiding I could alive with a Activity every day, but that anticipation looks a lot easier to absorb with the 2020 MX-5 Miata Grand Touring. That clocks in at $31,670 additional destination, and adds both automated niceties and some animal comforts like acrimonious seats to accomplish the droptop added livable. There’s a Club trim in-between, from $30,290, which sacrifices the covering autogenous and navigation.

Both Club and Grand Touring get a limited-slip cogwheel (only with the manual, mind) and activity suspension, while central there’s a 7-inch touchscreen affectation with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay support. Mazda’s infotainment is, well, not absolutely the best accessible arrangement – frustratingly it locks the touchscreen back you’re driving, abrogation you to twiddle, infuriated, at a jog-wheel in the centermost animate – so actuality able to bung in your buzz and about-face to Apple or Google’s UI is abundant added satisfactory.
The blow of the berth attempts to adumbrate the cost-cutting appropriate to hit the Miata’s advancing pricing. Best of the primary controls are accomplished – the small, leather-wrapped council caster has a slender, readily-gripped rim, while the perfectly-sized about-face bulge is additionally clad in adumbrate – and the switchgear, admitting hardly aesthetically striking, feels solid and straightforward. Your fingers don’t acquire to devious too far, though, to acquisition addled plastics that in some places can feel absolute flimsy.
Again, I can abdomen that, aloof as I’ll acquire the basal accumulator on offer. The chiral roof – accessible to accessible and close, afterwards accepting to get out aboriginal – doesn’t eat into the trunk, which is acceptable as that alone offers 4.59 cu-ft. In-cabin cubbies and nooks are tiny, and the autogenous itself is actual close. I’m 5’8 and it feels snug; six-footers and aloft are activity to feel absolutely outsized.

They’ll put up with that, though, for how the Miata drives. With anniversary generation, the purists choke their easily and anguish that Mazda will aback extinguish the little convertible’s spark; happily, there’s no assurance of that happening.
It’s a admonition that “more power” alone absolutely became all-important back we absent afterimage of lighter weight and admirable tuning. The Miata’s airy 2,341 batter backpack is the absolute antithesis for ability numbers that, on cardboard at least, assume low, but on the alley casting you appropriate into the centermost of the action.
You can’t aloof bank through on lashings of low-end torque, or await on adorned cyberbanking cheat to application your asperous driving. The Miata expects you to use that stick-shift, the beautifully counterbalanced clamp and abbreviate bandy auspicious appropriate downshifts. Everything is focused on that absolute drive, from the outsized tach to the little affectation authoritative abiding you never balloon what accessory you’re in.

The council is ablaze and communicative, while the abeyance bureaucracy leaves the Miata assertive and antic in the corners. It’s not to say you can’t go cruising. I took the Miata on a brace hundred afar of artery active and, while there was no curtailment of wind and alley babble alike with the top up, it was a acceptable admonition that this needn’t be aloof a weekend toy. Alone the annealed Bilstein dampers – accepted now on both Activity and Grand Touring – larboard me a little cool; they’re aloof too advancing to clothing that “GT” badging.
Mazda quotes 26 mpg in the city, 34 mpg on the highway, and 29 mpg combined, and they’re all conspicuously accessible alike if you acquiesce yourself some fun forth the way. 2020 cars additionally get some acceptable accepted assurance tech, like dark atom monitoring, a lane abandonment admonishing arrangement that loves to bark at you, and rear cantankerous cartage alerts. Smart Burghal Braking adds automated emergency braking with advanced blow warnings.
Honestly, I had no doubts that the Miata would agreeableness in added antic driving. My better catechism was whether Mazda’s upgrades would leave it activity added everyday-usable, whether that takes you in stop-go burghal cartage or on continued artery stretches. Get that right, afterwards all, and aback the MX-5 stops attractive like a additional car plaything.

It accepted to be a affable surprise. Yes, this still ability not be my aboriginal aces for continued artery jaunts, but Mazda has absolutely massaged the 2020 Miata into actuality a added ample car, afterwards accident its amount address forth the way. If the charms of active acquire amorphous to fade, it doesn’t booty continued with the MX-5’s abstract stick-shift to admonish you aloof why time at the caster can be so rewarding, and now that fun needn’t be bound to evenings and weekends.