MX-5 MIATA NA

About the MX-5 Miata NA

The car that saved the roadster. Pop-up headlights, a 1.6-liter (later 1.8-liter) four-cylinder, rear-wheel drive, and a manual soft top. The NA Miata was everything the British roadsters used to be — simple, light, engaging — with one critical difference: it started every morning. The 1.6 made 116 hp. The 1.8 made 131 hp. Neither number mattered because the NA weighed 940 kg and had a chassis balance that made every input feel meaningful. Double-wishbone suspension on all four corners — at this price point, in 1989 — was engineering generosity that Mazda's accountants should have vetoed. The pop-up headlights defined the face. The short-throw Nardi gearshift defined the experience. The NA Miata is the car that launched a million track day careers and proved that affordable rear-wheel-drive fun was a viable business model. Over 400,000 built. Every one of them a driver's car.