The Miata began as a conversation, not a business plan. In the late 1970s Mazda product planner Bob Hall told an engineer he wished someone would build a simple, affordable, lightweight British-style roadster - the kind the market had abandoned.
Hall got the chance to argue for it from inside Mazda, and the idea grew into a project with a deceptively narrow brief.
The brief
- A lightweight sports car in the spirit of the Lotus Elan and classic MG and Triumph roadsters, but reliable.
- Front-engine, rear-wheel drive, open-top, two seats, and honest handling over outright power.
- Small enough and cheap enough that ordinary enthusiasts could actually own one.
How it was built
Mazda ran a famous internal competition between design studios exploring front-engine/rear-drive, front-drive, and mid-engine layouts. The classic front-engine rear-drive concept won.
Mazda worked with the English engineering firm IAD (International Automotive Design) to help turn the concept into a running prototype, while Mazda's own teams in Japan and California shaped the final car. The result was codenamed internally and eventually badged for the world.
The debut
The production car broke cover at the 1989 Chicago Auto Show to an enthusiastic reception, and went on sale as a 1990 model in North America. It was an instant sensation: dealers marked cars up, magazines swooned, and a category everyone had declared dead came roaring back.
The genius was restraint. Mazda did not chase horsepower or gadgets - it chased feel, and got it right the first time.