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| 2006 Mazda MX-5 GS (Photo: Justin Pritchard, Auto123.com) |
But in keeping with MX-5 tradition, what you see from the driver seat is fairly simple as far as Mazdas go. To date I've tried 2 or 3 other models, all of which have interior quality I would pin against any luxury carmaker any day. The MX-5 interior is beautiful to look at while keeping things simple and focused. My tester was mainly black with a little aluminum looking accenting here and there. As far as looks go, in my opinion, the interior of this car is just as sexy as the outside, though perhaps a little sparse. There is a fair bit of hard plastic around you which, despite being beautifully assembled and solid, doesn't make the interior feel as expensive and high-class as other Mazdas. The enthusiasts who buy these machines don't care about hard plastic. The instrument cluster is gorgeous, easy to read and looks fantastic at night, with white needles pointing at deep orange indicators. There are some storage spaces behind each seat, as well as a cubby-hole in the rear panel behind your elbow. It's even got 4 cupholders, just in case you and a passenger each have two drinks on the go.
This car is designed for top-down fun, so we need to talk about the roof. People stare at you when you drive a car like this, especially when it's November and you have the roof down. I discovered that the only thing more fun than open-top motoring in the summer is open-top motoring at night in November. I went cruising around downtown on Friday night to get some reactions. "Uhm...Its winter!" one guy in line at a bar told me as he hugged himself for heat. He wasn't wearing anything much more than jeans and a T-shirt. He had no idea how warm I was. People lining the streets followed with their eyes and all looked somewhat confused, pointing, gawking and shouting clever remarks at me. "Is it winter in Alaska right now?" one asked. Mazda engineers seem to realize that one major problem with roadsters is that they are a seasonal novelty.
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| 2006 Mazda MX-5 GS (Photo: Justin Pritchard, Auto123.com) |
Perceived like a snow machine which you can only use in some parts of the year, a roadster is much the same. It's like they drop off the roads once summer is finished. To give customers more enjoyment out of the MX-5, Mazda engineers spent extensive time sculpting its shape in the wind tunnel. The result is amazing. At zero degrees Celsius, (like on my Friday night cruise) with the top down, you can drive it around without a heavy coat on and not even have the heater maxed. With a heavy coat, hardcore enthusiasts could enjoy their MX-5s into December. There is so little exchange of air between the inside and outside of the car when it's moving that it's nearly as warm as sitting inside of a hardtop with the heat on. It's all about aerodynamics, and this comes to life when you stop. Though you might think the opposite, the invisible bubble of warm air around the MX-5 cockpit only works when the car is moving, and it gets a touch chilly when waiting at a light, for instance. There is no reason to overlook an MX-5 if you think it has to go
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| 2006 Mazda MX-5 GS (Photo: Justin Pritchard, Auto123.com) |
away after August. If you do get cold, the genius roof mechanism lets you pull it back up and lock it in place in under 5 seconds, with one hand, and you don't even have to get out of the car. There is only a single latch point, meaning you can do everything from the driver seat. To open the roof, push one button, pull one lever and slide everything behind you over your head to give the roadster a clean new look. You may want to practice a few times before trying this at a light, however. My tester was very young and the hinges and joints in its roof mechanism were a little stiff. I'm told that after a short while they will loosen up and make the whole process even easier.
