Category: Roadsters 
Price Range: £15,000 to £19,695
Brilliant handling, engine's go and refinement, affordability, convenience, reliability and style
Cabin plastics, limited passenger legroom
The best traditional sports car you can buy
You don't buy a car like this to be cosseted, but in fact the improved seat support, well-arranged driving position and impressively supple suspension make the MX-5 a pleasingly painless way to get about. Hood down, it's fairly draught-free with the windstop in place, the heater is very effective and, for the first time, heated seats are available on the Sport model. You sit fairly tight-packed in the MX-5, although it certainly isn't claustrophobic. Oddly, there is less legroom for the passenger than for the driver, because the engine-management computer sits below the toe-board on that side. On a long trip, that could prove cramping. Boot space is fairly good and there is a lot of oddments stowage inside thanks to a redesign of the centre console. A satellite-navigation system is not available in the UK - despite brochure illustrations suggesting otherwise - but a reasonably powerful stereo is standard. Only the top-of-the-range Sport provides a CD player rather than a cassette deck.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Mazda MX-5
wrote on 12 09 2007
wrote on 27 02 2007