How Mazda Made the Greatest Sports Car Ever

the Miata was not the first cute sports car to come out of the Japanese company known as Mazda in fact their first passenger vehicle ever released in the spring of 1960 was a car that was mostly dorky but under the surface surprisingly sporty it was called the r360 coupe it wrapped a 356 CC air cooled engine that made 16 horsepower it was quick for that weird tiny economical car class that it was in and though Mazda would find much success making more practical sedans early on this car started a trend for the company building small affordable but still Innovative sports cars now just a year after the little cars release Mazda would make an interesting investment into the development of rotary powered engines joining forces with the German company NSU Mazda's first rotary-powered sports car came out in 1967 and it was known as the cosmo Sports 110s this was an important car for Mazda in terms of the their future as it would set a precedent in part because of its focus on futuristic technology but perhaps more importantly it showed that Mazda could build a compelling sports car on a solid reliable platform and they could continually improve it every year now the 70s would be marked particularly by the beginning of Mazda's long success in exporting lightweight rotary-powered sports cars think cars like the RX7 these cars really put Mazda on the map and helped carry their business all the way to the year 2000 but as the 1980s came to a close Mazda decided to pick up the reins of a type of car that was dead but that went all the way back to the very beginning of Motoring an idea really a specific certain type of vehicle known as the Roadster in a recent video of mine about two people or so didn't like that I called the Triumph TR6 A Roadster because the old English understanding of a roadster meant a two-seater open top sports car without roll-up Windows essentially roadsters had these sort of clip-on windows and of course I've heard this notion and actually my Mark 1 would fall into that category but this seems to be a limited view of the term in terms of history as into the 1970s Roadster would move on to essentially mean the same thing as you know a sporting convertible and cars like the dots and Roadster for example and of course the Miata or MX-5 or as it was known in Japan and Europe literally the Roadster now I don't want to belabor this point but in my opinion the idea that all roadsters died when the entire industry moved to roll-up Windows is just silly I mean through its run for example arguably one of the greatest roadsters which was Austin Healey's big Healy platform at this time the 3000 well that car switched from these clip-on side curtains to traditional roll-up windows again like the entire industry but that doesn't mean in my opinion at least that the big heli stopped being a roadster that's like saying oh sports cars stopped being sports cars when they got Bluetooth connection and it's only a sports car if it doesn't have Bluetooth it's all good though you can have your opinion but just because these newer convertibles have roll-up Windows like literally every manufacturer that did away with these god-awful clip-on windows that doesn't mean they're not roadsters and not in that early British Roadster tradition but of course I will acknowledge those early roadsters are the very epitome of this idea they are kind of the quintessential roadsters and I get that the windows the fact that they clip on it shows this sort of commitment to Raw performance but there are more important key features besides how the windows work that have always made Roadsters what they are top down performance oriented fun drivers cars I mean the very word Roadster gives off this Vibe of just a driver car Roadster would even be used to describe motorcycles like the Norton Commando that was kind of the last British Roadster motorcycle but as some of the more expensive and impressive roadsters died out in the late 60s what was left through the 70s were kind of more every man kind of cars they were affordable they were usable convertibles often designed with scale in Mind by piecing together existing parts these were cars that were just fun but by the 1980s even those cars had pretty much gone out of style with cars like the MGB to many the quintessential British sports car also the and the Triumph TR6 they were all gone by the 80s and I think many believed that the convertible itself was no longer a viable option for manufacturers on top of this thanks to changes in emissions and safety regulations the sports car industry as a whole was struggling as the 1970s came to a close companies like Volkswagen with their Golf GTI had figured out that everything you could ever want in terms of performance for the street could be had in a very simple regular practical car it didn't have to be exotic as Anthony Ingram says in his great little book on the Miata a book that I've Linked In the description below he says that at this time the seeds were being sown for a new kind of sports car like every great car it started with a conversation in the case of the Miata that conversation happened about a decade before the car's release in 1979. a man named Bob Hall a moto journalist for Moto Trend found himself in a meeting with the heads of r d at Mazda and in that meeting he mentioned sort of in passing that he believed Mazda was the company that needed to make a new kind of car a simple bugs in the teeth wind in the hair classically styled British sports car that's what he said basically a modern Roadster a fun little convertible In The Same Spirit as those British cars from the 50s and 60s but now with modern and Japanese reliability and features except roll up Windows you know we need to take off the roll-up windows and give it clip on Windows because otherwise we can't Market it as a roadster Mazda already had a small lightweight sports car in the RX7 that they certainly could have modified to fit this bill but they decided to go all in on the project a few years later with hall now working for Mazda he was assigned to help with this project and the goal really called for a totally new kind of car the idea was to make an incredibly lightweight two-seater convertible and weight would really be one of the main key elements to the project it wouldn't need 500 horsepower if it weighed less than anything else and it handled well and again this is a very old British idea of what a sports car can be for project p729 as it was referred to in these prototype stages Mazda set up a competition to get the best ideas for the overall design of this new car one team worked on a front engine rear drive setup another front engine front wheel and there were even people working on a mid-engine iteration of the Miata ultimately they went with the front engine rear drive to stay with the original intent of basically building a modern British sports car out of much discussion and much argument the overall now familiar body shape came to be and it was brutally simple and unassuming like the great roadsters that went before it it was meant to be a driver's car now my wife thinks that Miatas look like girl cars but I'm trying to teach her every time we see one I'm like oh look at Miata and she laughs about it and I'm like no these are real sports cars someday she'll get it now as Mazda worked on this car through the 1980s and yes it took many years they still didn't really know if it would be a success in the ever-changing landscape of the automotive Market but in 1986 they finally had a full-scale plastic version of the car and it was presented to 220 random people from the United States arguably the target Home Market of a car like this similar to the British sports cars before it and somewhat surprisingly to Mazda as the higher-ups really still doubted this entire project most of the people loved it with 57 people even saying that they would definitely definitely buy it if it came out and this was all they needed to push the project forward into production if 57 Americans are willing to buy your car you're basically set so Mazda went to work on the mechanics of the car tasked with creating a true Driving Experience everything from the exhaust note to the chassis and the steering feel it was all meant to mimic the experience of those old British roadsters for the engine they went with a 1597 CC inline 4 taken from Mazda's 323 G6 that car was pretty much a hot hatch that was used for group a and Mazda gave this engine a new aluminum cylinder head and a new specially designed double overhead camshaft and they found that the little four really revved out well but High revs wasn't the point of this car so much of the tuning of the engine was more focused on overall throttle response and even getting that really nice exhaust note say what you want about a gen 1 Miata it does sound a lot like an old British 4. oh foreign [Music] version of the gearbox that was present on the 929 was paired to the engine and this gearbox also was tuned and worked tirelessly to get that raw mechanical old British sports car feel that makes you feel so connected to the car some say that the Gen 1 Miata has the greatest gearbox ever but perhaps the greatest achievement and the one that all Miata owners understand was the handling this was mainly because Mazda decided to go Way Beyond this segment in terms of suspension nothing even remotely close to it in its class had this kind of suspension independent double wishbone for all four wheels coil springs and anti-roll bar front and rear suspension this was closer to race car stuff than production vehicles and of course this is one of the main reasons why the Miata would gain its reputation as really a track weapon again it's the little things that make a car like the Miata or say an MGB the ultimate normal guy sports car now for the Miata Mazda was focused on an old Japanese adage called jinba itai essentially this describes the relationship between a horse and its Rider a connection that comes over time from the gearbox to the suspension to just the overall feel this Oneness between machine and man was ultimately the guiding principle that would make the Miata such a legendary sports car but when it comes to a car versus say a horse the best way to achieve this connection is to get the overall weight of the car as low as possible now I've talked tirelessly about the influence of these old Great British roadsters and of course those were lightweight cars but you may look at a Miata and then look at the Great British sports cars of old and think Hmm something's missing as the lads at Triumph would have said the Miata just doesn't seem hairy chested enough and this is primarily because there was another let's be honest less hairy chested earlier attempt at taking the British Roadster formula to the max namely the Lotus along but most people know the Elan was an incredible vehicle of course the influence of the overall design of the Elan on the Miata is obvious and you know we could go on forever about the details of this car but in essence the Elan was in its day the ultimate experiment in weight savings for a car and it's in this tradition in part that the Miata would find its home but even in 1989 there was no way a modern car could hit the low numbers of say a Lotus Salon or an MG those cars weighed around 1500 pounds and the Miata was 2 000 pounds Mazda found weight savings at every level from the strong but lightweight body to the all-aluminum hood to even ditching a possible powered roof sometimes the simplest Solutions are best but the focus on making the car as light as possible is one of the main things that would make the Miata so great now the team did just as much work on the inside of the car as the outside with the cockpit finding a sort of mix between raw sports car our Vibes but also just comfort and ease of a regular car hours of time was spent on small details even the placement of the shift lever in relation to the driver to create that connection that jinba itai now many of you know the rest of the story the Miata would prove to be a total runaway success for Mazda with over a million being sold at this point and the car has really changed the very way that we look at sports cars the Miata would go down as one of the most influential cars of all time to many a fantastic platform for customization for others a more simple and reliable approachable sports car to Simply drive and use for fun perhaps the greatest achievement was to turn regular folk into sports car enthusiasts many a lay folk bottom Miata for its looks and found themselves keeping it long term for its Driving Experience and I think that's pretty cool of course the Miata would change quite a bit over the course of its four generations thankfully if you hate one of those Generations there's plenty available from every generation and many of them are very affordable but in the end a huge part of its success was the price tag you are getting a raw sports car experience for a fraction of the price and this is always the icing on the cake for great successful cars through history you make a great car then you make it very cheap and then you sell a million of them now this concept of jinba itai that is the relationship between Horse and Rider it's so interesting when you think about how it applies to cars into the Miata specifically we like to think of our cars in terms of horses I mean we use horses to describe the amount of power our vehicles create manufacturers often name their cars after these animals and we sometimes even call our garage a stable the fastest horses aren't the biggest or most imposing or even technically the most powerful they're actually just that perfect combination of agility strength and most importantly they're lightweight if the Miata were a horse some would argue that it would be a thoroughbred others would say you know Porsche would be a better description of a thoroughbred and a Miata is like a Shetland pony but you get the idea but there are deeper questions when it comes to thinking about this relationship between a horse and its Rider like how do you get a bunch of inanimate objects and materials that are thrown together into a package that we call a car in which you sit how do you get that thing to give you the experience of riding a horse one of the keys to the concept of jinba itai is the horse's involvement as a being that responds to your input and even adjusts to you as the rider specifically jinba itai is actually more about horses in archery so a horse will for example make small adjustments if it's been trained as you reach for your bow and as you fire arrows to keep you where you need to be but how can you accomplish that kind of thing with a car I mean are Rider AIDS the key to experiencing jinba itai in a car for Mazda capturing this experience meant getting at the feeling of Harmony that a rider in a horse experienced a feeling that you and the car are not separate entities but you kind of are one like the car is essentially an extension of yourself now I've ridden a horse a few times but I'm entirely sure I've never experienced anything like jinba itai but my wife has ridden horses for a long time and I was pretty sure that she would have a better idea of what this experience is like so without giving her any details on this video or this concept I just asked her a simple question what is it like to ride a horse she talked about things like feeling very free but she specifically said that it feels amazing when you're on a well-trained horse that you understand and that it understands you and it kind of works together with you and then everything sort of becomes easy and natural and I think this really is the same idea if you've ever mastered something like playing guitar and then got your hands on a guitar that was perfectly crafted for this experience or you know even playing a video video game you know what this is like it's not so much about you putting in the inputs and the thing doing the thing you are doing the thing through whatever that tool is the Miata was meant to be a car that you drove and quickly forgot about so that the equation didn't feel like you were making the car do things but the car was enabling you to do things and you in the car are one and you're sort of moving through space as one great sports cars throughout history have always sought to give the driver this experience but man few did it better than the Miata well I'd love to hear from you guys and girls especially those of you who have owned Miatas does any of this resonate with you let us know your story and as always thanks for watching we'll see you guys in the next one drive safe

Channel: Bart's Car Stories

Views: 1,220

Keywords: car, cars, car history, car video, car videos, history of cars, automotive history, vehicle, automotive, car channel, bart, bart's car stories, car stories, story, Mazda, Mazda Miata, miata, mazda history, history of miata, how mazda made the greatest sports car of all time, sports car, sportscar, greatest sports car, racecar, track, japanese, honda, toyota, history, car youtube, car youtuber

Id: 7nz1CQ4uCJw

Length: 17min 4sec (1024 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 10 2023