Basically, if you need an affordable sports car/roadster, this is one you should test drive.
It's peppy alright, giving you a low-to-the-ground ( sorta ) sports car grope grip on the road. Rear-wheel drive and a manual transmission are standard, so make sure you don't drive in the snow or ice ever. Starting at around $25K, it is affordable by comparison to similar roadsters like the Audi TT or anything Mini Cooper puts out. And the Miata nameplate has come to be known over the last few decades as sporty and fast. The one I test drove was a hard top, but I understand the convertible really is worth a spin. ( Again, don't buy this as your main getaway car for the states that currently have legal recreational marijuana—they really will be rain or worse on your parade. )
The 2016 MX-5 is an all-new incarnation for the Miata lineup. To be honest, I was hard-pressed to see what was so new about it. ( It's lighter and has more technology, so I'm told. ) The Miata has always been the sports car for the working stiffs who don't do high-end racing in England or Scotland or other exotic places where lotsa white people speak in high-falutin' accents. If you like to drive to work or the gym or the coffee bar every day and feel like you are tearing up the road with a car that really can, the 2016 MX-5 is one of your best bets.
( According to Google, an obscure reference on a website with no graphics suggests that the word Miata comes from a German word 'meed', which means reward. News to me, since I thought Miata sounded more like a Japanese word. Miata is also apparently a trending name for babies. Other than girls named Tabitha and Pebbles, who knew? )
The 2016 MX-5 Miata comes with the basic four-cylinders, and it really does prove to be more than enough power, even with a 2.0 liter, 155 horsepower engine. Yeah, yeah, not exactly a high-performance engine, but as previously stated, if you are a working stiff, love speed, like it loud and cranked up high but still want your parents to enjoy the ride, well, you get the picture.
For all you gear heads who can't wait to break something down and rebuild it again, the 2016 Miata can handle a bigger engine if you so desire to install one. Here's a guy who just recently put an LS3 performance engine in an MX-5—just because he could. Personally, I'd hire some hunky auto geeks to do that for me—even paying for their Speedos, Coppertone and carb-free kale salad would be cheaper than buying, say, a TT or a Mini.
Keep in mind that there is limited practicality to the MX-5 Miata. It's a bit snug inside, and if any of your friends meet the definition of Fatso—and you take them with you everywhere—the MX-5 might not be a popular option, especially after you hit your first in-road drainage ditch. This is a sports car, first and foremost, though it is being marketed as an all-around car. It kinda is, but be careful. By comparison, I love the Audi TT and every Mini Cooper I have ever driven, but when you really have work to do, these cars don't cut it … and why would you get a workhorse as your Sunday fun-day car?
Honestly, I wish every day were a PTO day. I have never bought into this whole American Christian work ethic that suggest that a man is only as good as the fruits of his labor—I am already enough of a fruit. That said, when it comes to hard work, I'm in total agreement with the late Vaudevillian ventriloquist Edgar Bergen ( Murphy Brown's dad ) and his dummy Charlie McCarthy:
"Hard work never killed anyone—but why take the chance?"
See more at Gaywheels.com .
Auto news
—Recall: A family car owned by the nation's top auto safety regulator's family has been recalled to fix a faulty Takata airbag—but, like millions of others, he's waiting for parts to make the repair, Claims Journal noted. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief Mark Rosekind said that a car normally driven by his wife was recalled to fix an airbag inflator. When she checked the vehicle identification number in a recall database, she found there were no replacement inflators available. So far, 14 automakers have recalled 24 million U.S. vehicles with Takata inflators.
