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auto racingDid the car buying public abandon affordable lightweight open-topped sports cars, or did manufacturers abandon them? Either way, mazda spotted a gap in the market and in 1989 released themazda mx5.Concept mazda mx5.The concept for this car is rumored to have grown from a auto racingconversation that automotive journalist Bob Hall had with Kenichi Yamamoto, the managing director of mazda in spring 1979. Two years later when Bob Hall joined mazda's product planning department, themazda mx5took one step closer to production. mazda North America (MANA) soon went to work producing several designs, meanwhileauto racingmazda's Tokyo design studio was producing designs of it's own.In April 1984 the design sketches were presented to head office, at this stage the Tokyo mid-engined coupe design looked more promising, but MANA didn't give up. In August of the same year, the teams met again at Hiroshima auto racingto compare full sized clay models. This time there was no contest and MANA's two seater rear wheel drive design was selected.A British company, International Automotive Designs (IAD) were charged with the task of building a working prototype. This was completed by August 1985 and the plan was auto racingto ship it straight to Japan for review in marketing clinics, but Masataka Matsui, head of the Testing and Research division had other ideas. Instead the car was taken to Santa Barbara, California where it could be viewed by potential buyers in it's main target marketplace. The car was anauto racingimmediate hit and in the words of one of the engineers we had people chasing us down the street asking us who made the car. The car's future was assured and in January 1986 the project was given the official go-ahead.Concept mazda mx5. Click to see signed printauto racingbought in miata.net auction 1997At this point serious consideration was given as to how the car should be built. A crucial decision had to be made , whether to build the car on an existing floor plan or to start from scatch and build a new one. mazda auto racingdecided that it had the opportunity to build exactly the car it wanted and that there was no point in building it, if they didn't build it right. The attention to detail and the amount of effort put in by the teams was astounding. For example Toshihiko Hirai the Productauto racingProgram Manager made an audio tape of his favourite car exhaust notes and played it over and over until he had decided on exactly the right sound. Meanwhile, back in California, Rod Bymaster was searching for a name for this new car. Finally one day he came across the wordauto racing'Meed' in the dictionary which was derived from the old German word Miata meaning 'Reward'. The name stuck and themazda mx5was badged the 'Miata' in North America.In August 1988 the car was presented to a select group of car magazine editors at the mazda test track auto racingin Miyoshi. They loved the car, but were sworn to secrecy. The first spy pictures appeared in 'Autoweek' in November 1988 and in June 1989 mazda held a press conference to announce the launch of their new light-weight sports car. Since then themazda mx5, has collected awards, rave reviewsauto racingand a place on the short list for car of the century. The rest, as they say, is History. By: Jon beal |
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