For a clear indication of just how much fun the fourth-generation Mazda MX-5 has been to live with over the past year, just look at that bill for tyres: £860 for eight of the blooming things.
We just couldn’t stop driving it hard, because this was a car that demanded to be discovered, compared, questioned, explored and enjoyed at every opportunity.
The brief for the Mk4 MX-5, launched last summer, is well known – not that ‘tyre-shredder’ was in it. And it isn’t a tyre-shredder, of course, because that was all our doing. But more on that in a moment.
Mazda’s brief, then, was to make the MX-5 smaller and lighter while keeping it fun and affordable. The MX-5 kept the classic front-engined, rear-wheel-drive roadster layout and now looks even better with Mazda’s lovely Kodo design language.
With such a formula to work with and a track record like Mazda’s of making such a car, it hasn’t really been a surprise that our year in the latest MX-5 has been a good ’un.
To jump straight into the dissection of the oily bits, you can have your MX-5 with one of two new normally aspirated engines: a 1.5 and a 2.0. We went for the larger unit, so we had the MX-5 at its most powerful but, admittedly, not its absolute purest.
In an era dominated by downsized turbocharged engines, it has been refreshing to drive a motor that goes against the trend. Mazda instead calls it ‘right-sizing’, offering the right-sized engine for a car with the right amount of power, rather than relying on a turbocharger to do all the work. It leads to a much nicer and more progressive driving experience, the engine smooth and linear throughout the rev range while coming alive at the top end.
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Depreciation
Sounds terrific, but why the big discounts?
Either way, in the short term it's good news for buyers, but less so for future depreciation and the long term future of affordable sports cars.