Japanese automotive companies are not exactly renowned for making sports cars, but one company has managed to create one of the most iconic roadsters of all time; the Mazda Miata. Known as the Mazda MX-5 outside of the US, the Miata is far from the only sports car that Mazda has created throughout its history.
Mazda’s range of sports cars may have been hugely popular with drivers all over the world, but there are still some surprising facts of which Mazda owners may not be aware of. Check out the list below if you want to learn more about the secret history of your own Mazda sports car.
10 Mazda Built Its First Sports Car In 1967
Drivers will be most familiar with modern sports cars like the Mazda-MX5, and the now-discontinued Mazda-RX8 and Mazda RX7 but the company’s sporty history goes a lot further back than the 1990s when most of these cars were first launched.
The very first Mazda sports car was built in 1967, the Mazda Cosmos Sport, which was also the first production car powered by a rotary engine. It is an impressive first attempt at designing a sports car, and vintage models are still much in demand today.
9 The Mazda Miata Sports Car Shares Its Platform With The Fiat 124 Spider
The Mazda Miata has been around since 1989 and has been such a success with drivers that it is hardly surprising that other car manufacturers would try and copy their style.
It is common in the automotive world for manufacturers to share their knowledge, for a price, and when Fiat was trying to come up with a design for a new sports car, they decided to use the same platform as the Mazda MX-5. The result was the compact and stylish Fiat 124 Spider, which was launched in 2016.
8 The Folding Roof On The Mazda Miata Takes 12 Seconds To Lift And Lower
One of the best things about owning a sports car is the convertible roof, which allows drivers to enjoy riding around with the top down if the weather allows. Mazda sports cars have been available with both hard-top and soft-top convertible options, and since 2005 the Mazda MX-5 has had an electric hard-top retractable roof.
Owners who opted for the soft-top still have to do the work themselves. Best of all, the electric roof on the Miata takes just 12 seconds to go down – and to go back up if the weather turns!
7 Mazda Sports Cars Have Featured In The Fast And Furious Movies
Mazda sports cars may be popular, but they don’t always have the best reputation. Some people consider their design to be too feminine, and there is a running joke that the Mazda Miata is the kind of car a hairdresser would drive.
Nevertheless, Mazda sports cars have made guest appearances in the Fast and Furious movies, including in the opening scene of the first film when Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto was seen behind the wheel of a modified Mazda RX-7 – though the car’s nitrous oxide system was faked with plumbing parts and scuba gear!
6 Cars Twins Mia And Tia Are Based On The 1st Generation Mazda MX-5
At the other end of the Hollywood spectrum, the Mazda Miata also made an appearance in the Pixar animated movie, Cars. Superfan twins Mia and Tia are based on the Mazda Miata – the clue is in their names which can also be seen on their license plates.
Their characters feature in all three of the Cars films after they follow Lightning McQueen to the small town of Radiator Springs and start working at the V-8 Café as waitresses. Miata fans can always buy toy versions of Mia and Tia if they can’t afford the real thing.
5 The Mazda Miata Made It Into The Guinness Book Of Records In 2000
Regardless of the jokes that have been cracked at the expense of the Mazda Miata, sales have been strong ever since the car first went on the market in 1989. So many Miata models were sold that by the year 2000 the compact roadster had earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the best-selling two-seater sports car of all time.
By 2016, over a million Mazda MX-5 cars had been sold worldwide, and its popularity shows no sign of waning.
4 Only 63 Models Of The Rare Mazda MX-5 NB Coupe Were Ever Made
The Mazda MX-5 may sell in its millions, but there a few earlier versions of the car that were only ever made as a limited edition, making them popular with collectors of both sports cars and Japanese vehicles.
Perhaps the rarest MX-5 ever made was the Mazda MX-5 NB Coupe, of which only 63 were ever manufactured. They don’t come up for sale very often, but one went on sale in Hong Kong in 2019 with a price tag of $38,000.
3 The Miata Was Sold As The Eunos Roadster When Launched In Japan
The first time that the Mazda MX-5 was seen by the public was at the 1989 Chicago Auto Show, before going on sale in the States later that year. When it first went on sale in Japan, however, the Miata had a completely different name – the Eunos Roadster.
Aside from the different name, the Japanese version of the early MX-5 also had a more powerful engine than the model that was sold in Europe and the US. Eunos was one of five subsidiary marques established by Mazda in the 1980s and 1990s, all of which eventually failed.
2 The Award-Winning Mazda Renesis Rotary Engine Powered The Mazda RX-8
Mazda was a pioneer of the rotary engine, first seen in their 1967 Mazda Cosmos Sport model. The company went on to use its proprietary rotary engine technology in all of its sports cars, although the company hasn’t used them in a new vehicle since 2012.
The last new car which had a rotary engine fitted was the RX-8 sports car which was powered by the award-winning Mazda Renesis engine. The company has said that they intend to return to using rotary engines at some point in the future, as well as embracing new electric technology to create greener sports cars.
1 The Design Of The Mazda Miata Was Inspired By The Lotus Elan
The iconic look of the Mazda MX-5 Miata may have inspired other roadsters, like the Fiat 124 Spider, but the designers of the original model back in 1989 were themselves inspired by another classic sports car; the Lotus Elan.
It was the 1963 model of the British-made Lotus Elan sports car which provided much of the inspiration for the way that Mazda Miata still looks today, and Mazda’s engineers were also influenced by the Elan’s engine, even though it was over 20 years old by the time the Miata was launched.