Guilt-free motoring
You have to go far up the food chain to get anything close to this good
Little afraid of it
Squeezing the joy glands with no repercussions, until you get used to it … then what
Already a classic
Things have changed so much since launch — what was going is now gone
Nothing is this good; not even other Miatas
Where everything else is a crossover, the little roadster represents freedom, the hardest flex of all
Feels so lively and fizzing and almost illegal even at 120
Can’t reproduce that in anything else
Modern build quality and reliability, but the only modern car approaching old car feel
The dream can be real
Works very nearly as well here as it does in LA
Helps groundedness, being present, invaluable in an era where no one’s here
Not even BMWs are this good; impervious to sh-tposting, avoids uncanny valley with classics
Cheap to run and hilarious fun
What if your car was just good? Why can’t everything be like this?
Ripple in the universe

[Oops. I totally thought this was a poem. Apparently, these are actually Nathan’s rough notes. I’m still going to leave them in, because it works. —Ed.]

I haven’t been doing this for terribly long, but I’ve been blessed with the enormous privilege of being granted an extremely accelerated development. The amount and caliber of cars I’ve driven in two years of doing this has been dizzying, such that I feel it’s broken my perspective a bit. With this in mind, it’s nice to occasionally revisit a car, see if they still hold up and/or chart how warped I’ve become. Enter — or, re-enter — the 2023 Mazda MX-5 Miata.

When I was still really green in this line of work, I found myself in Los Angeles with a nearly identical Miata and given the imperative of exploring the world-renowned pavement ribbons encircling the fabled automotive mecca. To say it was a revelation would be a bit of an understatement. I came away from the experience with a deep-seated adoration for the mechanized magic that Mazda has distilled into this latest generation of Miata, and wondered if maybe the Miata is the answer I’ve been seeking for so long.

But that was a fleeting and fantastical frolic in paradise. Of course I was going to love it. Who wouldn’t? I figured it was probably best to let that perfect memory remain untainted by reality, a saccharine story without my world wearing the special out of it, from a time and place that can’t exist in my life.

Or can it?

I’ve spent a sizable amount of time with this particular mid-grade MX-5 Miata, fitted with the same lightweight BBS wheels, perfectly honed Bilstein shocks, and glorious mechanical limited-slip differential as the car with which I tore up Angeles Crest. The big difference is, instead of being on vacation, surrounded by surreal natural beauty and perfect climate, I was in the broken pavement grid that is Toronto.

Sitting in traffic. Going to work. In the middle of winter. This is the exact reality I was afraid of trying to integrate with the perfect image in my head.

Yet the delightful Miata holds up the rigours of the real world considerably better than I could have guessed. The same delectable controls that I loved so much in California were just as much fun to exploit here, and in some ways more so, breathing life into roads I didn’t know could be fun. The industrial-grade oven that Mazda calls a heater works with the snug and thermally endowed Recaro seats so well that you can enjoy having the top down here, even in the middle of winter, assuming it’s not actively nasty outside. I logged 1,300 kilometers in this car for this winter test — and less than 100 of which with he top up.

I couldn’t believe it.

There are some sizable concessions that are inherent to it being a tiny, featherweight ragtop — compromises that other modern sports cars, like the 2024 Porsche 718 Boxster we recently reviewed, don’t have to make. The most apparent is the Porsche’s thick, multi-layered folding top. I don’t care that it’s powered, because the Miata’s manual action is still the best in any car ever. But I do care that it’s meaningfully quieter with the top up than it is down; something the little Miata struggles with.

The Boxster also has two trunks, both of which on their own are larger than the Miata’s single little cargo hold. The Miata demands careful consideration for even the most modest of plans; it was nearly overwhelmed by my messenger bag, a guest’s overnight bag, and some dinner fixings. The Boxster is also, you know, a Porsche. In other words, a beautifully appointed, well-thought-out luxury vehicle.

With 295 horsepower from its surprisingly characterful 2.0-litre horizontally opposed four-cylinder engine, the Boxster a damn sight more powerful than the Miata. It also drives and handles ridiculously well, with similarly delicious action from its six-speed manual transmission as the Miata and finely honed driver controls. It’s a Porsche! Of course it drives fantastically! Who else in the business knows how to set up a communicative steering rack, or perfectly placed pedals, like Porsche? A BMW Z4 might be more compelling, with its much more substantial drivetrain and now that you can get it with three pedals as well, but Porsche has the fine points of chassis balance and driver engagement nailed like no one else does.

Except Mazda.

The Porsche may be faster, nicer, more practical, easier to live with, but it pays a price for this. It carries a 700-pound weight penalty over the sprightly Miata. This means, for all the Boxster’s leather-this-and-powered-that, it’s not nearly as connected of a machine. For all its added performance capability — not to mention price tag — it doesn’t feel any faster tearing up a back road or bombing across a highway as a Miata. The Boxster is an absolutely stellar car, handily one of the best-driving vehicles under $100,000, but a charming wink and nod to how sports cars used to be.

But the Miata is something else. It’s not an homage. It is what a sports car used to be. It’s one of precious few modern cars available that perfectly encapsulates that direct, uninhibited connection of a classic car that’s become something of a meme in the car world. You have to go so far up the food chain to get something on the same level of raw driver enjoyment that this offers, and it does so from pretty close to the bottom of the new car price ladder, at just under $43,000 as-tested.

That amount of money might give some buyers pause because of how little car you’re objectively getting. But that’s the Miata’s magic: less is more, because it’s so light and simple, incredibly cheap to operate, as reliable as a clock, and more fun than almost anything else from any era or at any price. This generation of Miata is already nine years old, and I’m firmly of the opinion that for these reasons and more, it’s already a classic.

The 2023 Mazda MX-5 Miata has been staring me in the face all along. It makes so much sense. Miata is always the answer. I need one.

[By the way, Nathan bought the damn thing. —Ed.]