(upbeat music) - For three and a half decades Miata has proven the
entire car industry wrong. Cars can't be small, cars can't be light, it just can't be done. Well, the Miata did it
and it continues to do it. In the process, it has
banished to the history books every single competitor
that's thrown against it. It's survived economic
downturns, pandemics and TikTok and it's done this by adhering
to one simple philosophy. Do not ever give the customer
what they're asking for. Just give them a good time. (upbeat music) This video is brought to you
by the Hagerty Driver's Club. Sign up today using the link below. (upbeat music) Mazda is a company that in the 1970s and '80s, became defined by
the Rotary Engine Powered RX-7. But that wasn't enough for one outspoken, stubborn automotive
journalist named Bob Hall, who thought Mazda needed to make a lighter and more affordable sports
car than the RX-7 was. Years later, he left
his job as a journalist and partly because he speaks Japanese, became one of the first
Americans to work at Mazda's US product planning office where he never stopped
tormenting everyone to make an LWS, a light weight sports. This is the kind of car
that defined European cars at the 1950s and '60s. Alfa Romeo, MG, Triumph,
Fiat, Austin Healy, and perhaps more than most, Lotus. They were called sports cars
and I'll read you a passage from a magazine that was
called Sports Cars Illustrated, way back when these cars ruled the earth. Sports cars were more
than just two seaters, they were a way of life,
with social protocol, weekend competitions and heroic
tales of roadside repairs. Sports cars were much more than cars. They were the nucleus of a movement, a reason to get out of
bed on Saturday morning. They were also killed off,
mostly in the late 1960s and early 1970s when it seemed
American safety regulations would outlaw convertibles altogether. Well then, and when
buyers realized that cars didn't need to be flaming,
dripping, smoking, fragile, ill engineered, poorly
assembled, falling apart, rolling oil slicks. What was lost though
was the joy of driving and Bob Hall relentlessly
nagged his employer to please build something
that would bring back the joy. In the early 1980s, Mazda's US operations sent over a document entitled, What Is a Sports Car To An American, outlining the only way
it could be successful. There needs to be some
measure of performance, but numbers don't matter. It must be simple, it must be light. Seat two and only two and have a soft top. And the biggest requirement,
engine up front, rear wheel drive. Mazda's home office
didn't see the importance of that last bit. The world was at the time
moving to front wheel drive. In fact, Mazda had just
switched its 323 from rear drive to front and said why don't
we just make a sports car out of that? After all, Honda had done
exactly that with the CRX. Japan also suggested as an alternative, moving that transverse
powertrain to the back of the car and making a mid-engine sports car, like Toyota had just done with the MR2. The US said, "No way." And to solve the disagreement, management came up with
a design competition. The Tokyo Studio would do the
two transverse engine designs, the front wheel drive car
and the mid engine one. Meanwhile, those
anachronistic California folks would keep it old school. The US design proposal
came from Tom Matano, who was vehemently opposed
to the other layouts. "An LWS must be an everyday sports car." He said, comparing them to
a pair of running shoes, which you just put on and jog around the block.
- Jog around the block. So the midship is like
you need a special shoes, special track to utilize the
fullest skills to enjoy it. - Nice shirt, nice shirt. Just as big an issue was
that the mid engine car would be difficult to produce and heavy because of the additional bulkheads needed to isolate the
passengers from the engine. And a front wheel drive sports car? I'd argue there is no such thing as a front wheel drive sports car, but I don't have to because
Lotus argued that for me. The very same year as the Miata debuted, Lotus made its first and
only ever front wheel drive sports car. The M100 chassis Elan, ever seen one? I rest my case and the
great irony is that the Elan was named after the Elan. The car that inspired not
only the Miata's layouts but also its looks. (dramatic music) Bob Hall and Tom Matano were
successful in convincing Mazda that the Lotus layout
was the only way to go. The design brief for the LWS
was swinging time machine and US based designer, Koichi
Hayashi started to work on the design. After three clay models, he sent his work to his boss in Japan who responded, "I felt sorry for Hayashi. "After spending so many years in the US, "he must have eaten too much steak "and forgotten the delicacy
of Japanese cuisine." He called us fat. Well, it was a joke, no
one was eating the Miata. Tanaka then brutalized the design. So much so that Bob Hall, Tom Matano and the original team were convinced he'd killed its chances entirely. Meanwhile, Mazda US's
own marketing department kept asking why the car
wasn't front wheel drive, which would be cheaper to produce. And when Mazda US's head
of sales saw some Polaroids of the nearly finished Roadster, sales said there was no
market for the car period, no matter how it looked. The president of Mazda Germany saw the car and said, "There's no sales
potential anywhere in Europe." And then Mazda's home
office in Japan said, projected sales volume
in Japan was so small as to make the car
economically non-viable. And after hearing that,
it was the US team, the team that had created this and won multiple internal battles, each of which almost killed
off the Miata entirely, who said, you know what? Just forget the whole thing. Kill the car, kill it. Dead, gone, gone, forget it. Forget we even asked, this is
why we can't have nice things or something like that. But by this point, Mazda was too far in and it wanted an answer from
potential customers directly and so it's sent to Tanaka's
full size fiberglass model to California to hold a customer clinic. To everyone's surprise, when the US team saw the model
in person, they loved it. Turns out the pictures
hadn't done it justice and all of that worrying
and arguing was unfounded. Designed with inspiration from
Japanese theatrical noh masks that change expression
via light and shadow, the Miata was more than
a two-dimensional car. It was a face. In fact, when Mazda's
computers analyzed it, differences in lighting
condition gave the Miata 260 different faces compared
to just 80 for a typical Mazda. It was immediately endearing, simple, small, elegant, retro, happy. And the 240 people at the
customer clinic were enthralled. Without knowing anything
about the little convertible or even who made it, 60% of them liked it. 80% of them said they'd willing to buy it and the average price they
said they'd be willing to pay for it was more than 40% higher
than Mazda's planned price. More than anything, they
thought it was a Porsche or an Alfa Romeo and the
primary reason why people didn't like it was because they'd owned
a lightweight sports car in the past and it was unreliable. Little did they know it was a Mazda, that wouldn't be a problem. And based on that
triumphant customer clinic, the LWS and its team
were given a green light. Sir.
- Oh, thank you. - Get it, green light. From an engineering
perspective, it was all simple. A conventional-ish unibody structure that used finite element
analysis to keep the weigh as absolutely low as possible. This was only possible because the car was a bespoke
thing from the get go. Not some heavy sedan
turned into a Roadster, which meant the Miata
immediately joined the ranks of only a small number of true sports cars made on their own dedicated platform. Every one of which has become an icon. For the Miata, it meant
the best of everything. Double wishbone at all four
corners, four wheel disc brakes, a close ratio five speed manual, and nothing you didn't need. The engine was mounted almost completely behind the front wheels. A 16 valve four cylinder from the 323 that was turned around 90 degrees and given a new valve cover, designed to be a voluptuous beacon of the aggressive twin
cams that lie beneath. It pulled to 7,000 RPM, with a distinctive exhaust note designed by a bunch of
engineers who studied and then replicated the sound that made people close their eyes and say. - That sounds like a
little red sports car. - Between the transmission
and differential was the PPF or power plant frame, an
ingenious aluminum lattice that rigidly connected
the entire drive line. This enormous piece
eliminated drive line lash but weighed only 10 pounds. But it gets even better, by allowing the elimination
of some of the other mounts, in some it added zero
weight to the whole car. Weight was the lightweight
sports middle name and the production Miata
weighed just 2200 pounds. To get there, every single part needed to be weight optimized. Even the wheels which are
visual copies of 1960 style mini lights, but with seven
spokes instead of eight to drop the weight by 10%. Any criticisms of this car
being too small, too loud, to anything were met
with fierce resistance from everyone involved. The Miata team solution
to countries that required a full-size spare tire, which
the engineers couldn't fit in the design, well, they just
didn't sell the Miata there. Problem solved. If you had a problem with this car, it's because you had a
problem with sports cars. The Miata was undiluted
sports car perfection, a blast to slide around a racetrack but fun in a parking lot. It was comfortable. Reliable. Watertight. Well built. - Good. - Charismatic, and thanks
to the stubbornness and clear vision of all parties involved on both sides of the Pacific, it's remained that way ever since. The second generation
Miata almost came with a single clutch automated manual, but the chief engineer was able
to stave off that awful fad which ruined so many of our favorite turn of the century cars. It was available with a
turbo for a short time until that too was
dismissed for being contrary to the Miatas purity. The third generation Miata
was new from the ground up and the chief engineer said, quote, "The decision not to change the size "has been the hardest part of my work. "It's a challenge to repress the desire "to address every request. "I must focus on keeping the faith "in the lightweight sports true value." Remember, even the mighty
RX-7 rendered itself extinct by chasing speed and comfort
at the expense of low cost, lightweight and simplicity. After just two years, total
Miata production surpassed that of the Alfa Romeo Spider, which had been on sale for 26 years. In its 10th year, the Miata
became the bestselling two seater sports car in history and then it doubled that number, at last count, 1.1
million Miatas as of 2022. The Miata has succeeded
where every other so-called lightweight sports car has come and gone. And it's done that by sticking
to the original formula. Adjusted for inflation, this
costs less than it did in 1989 and in those intervening
three and a half decades, it hasn't grown. It's the same size and it's
gained less than 100 pounds. Compare that to the Porsche 911, which has gained 600 pounds, is nine inches longer
and eight inches wider, and with just one engine in
your choice of transmission and top, Mazda sells just as
many Miatas here every year as Porsche sells 911's. Even though Porsche makes 37
different variants of the 911, with three transmissions, seven engines, two-wheel
drive, four-wheel drive, coop convertible target,
standard body, wide body, two seat four, seat, dot, dot, dot. By not falling into fads or chasing speed, or growing into something it
was just never meant to be, the Miata has wound up being the only true lightweight
sports car on the planet. If the original lightweight
sports were the nucleus of a movement, the Miata is
the positive electric charge that holds together the
entire car community. (dramatic music) (car revving)
