25AE Miata has a secret under its hood
Mazda’s new 25th Anniversary Miata has a secret under its hood
The hand-written swan song for the third-gen MX-5.
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The next-generation MX-5 is still in gestation, but Mazda has arrived at the New York Auto Show with a special 2015 Miata 25th Anniversary Edition to whet our open-top appetite.
Options-wise, this limited-run roadster is similar in spec to its Club-model sibling. This means it has gunmetal 17-inch wheels wrapped in 205/45 Bridgestone Potenza RE050A rubber. A folding hardtop is standard, and the sole option is between an automatic or manual gearbox, both six-speeds, the latter of which comes with Bilstien dampers. The 2015 Miata 25th AE is the only production car to wear Mazda’s Soul Red metallic paint, which has thus far been reserved for show vehicles. It looks damn good on the show stand, but as it turns out, the real treasure is hidden underneath the hood.
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A company spokesperson confirmed to us that the 25th AE Miata’s 2.0-liter MZR engine is a blueprinted unit, built with internal components hand-selected by engineers. While Mazda isn’t divulging the exact tolerances, we’re led to believe variance across the MZR’s four pistons may be as little as thousandths of a gram. With a production run of roughly 1000 cars (100 for the US and 100 for Canada, with the remainder headed to European markets), a rep from motorsports says full-on bespoke motor assembly wasn’t feasible, but that “some of the engine” has been hand-built.
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As a final touch, Mazda told us that all 25th AE Miatas will be built-to-order when online pre-orders begin later this spring.
“If there are 99 orders with an automatic transmission and 1 with a manual gearbox, we’ll build 99 autos and 1 manual,” a rep told us.
Nice to know, but we somehow don’t foresee that happening.
source: http://www.roadandtrack.com/nyc/mazd...=1459_53745502
