Mazda might build a Miata coupe
(above photo) The M coupe concept debuted at the New York auto show in 1996, sparking a flurry of will-they-build-it? rumors. Alas
FASTBACK MIATA MIGHT FOLLOW THE ROADSTER A YEAR AFTER THE NEXT MIATA GOES ON SALE
The story, from our friends at Automotive News, goes like this: Mazda might finally -- finally -- do a Miata coupe.
Automotive News has detailed Mazda's plans for its sixth generation of cars, all with fresh and shiny Kodo styling. The first of these will be the Mazda 2, which will arrive at dealers in November. The next will be the Mazda 6, which gets a minor refresh. And then, next summer, we will be able to drive the Miata, on an actual road, instead of gawking at it like we'll do in just two weeks.
"Roughly a year after the soft-top goes on sale," Automotive News reports, "Mazda will release a hardtop MX-5 that will have a unique, fastback-style silhouette."
Rumors of a hardtop Miata have been rumbling ever since, well, the beginning -- 25 years ago. Mazda has slyly winked along with these rumors every once in a while, neither confirming nor denying; it launched a thousand more rumors in 1996 when the company debuted the M coupe concept, using RX-7 doors and a fiberglass roof -- a car that's tucked away in Mazda's secret basement to this day, occasionally brought out as a "what if?" concept.
What if, indeed. What we're not supposed to know here in America is that Mazda built a run of coupes in Japan, beginning in 2002 with the RS coupe -- a fastback based on the NB, the Miata coupe the world deserved. (Some less-than-charitable Miata owners labeled it a "Ford Probe." Not that there's anything wrong with that.) This led into the, ahem, unusual RS-E Type, not a Jaguar at all, adding a front end that resembled a Maserati Quattroporte with whiskers. Information on this one is scant. The RS coupe continued onward until 2003 in highly limited numbers, and Mazdaspeed notably debuted an A-Type variant at the 2003 Tokyo Auto Salon. "More rigid and precise than its open-top counterpart," said Speedhunters when they drove the car, "for obvious reasons."
(above photo) Mazda Limited Edition RS-Coupe Roadster (a Japan only release)
That's both why a Miata coupe makes sense, and why Mazda hasn't seen fit to grant us one yet: It would forego the quaint, laid-back emotion of roadster motoring -- wind in your hair, sun shining through the trees, the sort of thing the Miata has slavishly followed for the past quarter-century -- for hardcore performance. The Power Retractable Hard Top MX-5 serves as a compromise -- a well-engineered, lightweight concession to the security and comfort of a hardtop, but not to the very noticeable feel of a stiffer chassis. Yet a full-on Miata coupe could leverage its reputation against the FR-S/BRZ twins, adorable upstarts by comparison -- and bring the Miata to an entirely new audience of sports-car enthusiasts.
Rest assured, however: The next one will not -- not now, not ever -- have a Corvette engine.
Other interesting things to take away from Automotive News' report: The Mazdaspeed 3 might get AWD, which will go a long way to making the car actually civilized to drive for about 10 seconds but will lose its ferocious, wheelspinning manliness. A CX-3 compact SUV will ride on the Mazda 2's platform and might even get a manual, like its big-brother CX-5. A rotary-engined sports car has been rumored since time immemorial and will probably continue not existing. Lastly, the Mazda 5 -- the last minivan you could buy with a manual transmission -- will go away, forever. It's because you, the American car-buying public, never understood the nuances of Nagare design and overlooked the oddest-ball of oddball people carriers.
source: http://autoweek.com/article/car-news...ld-miata-coupe
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