Okanagan Valley Miata Club archive
March 2007

Club Meeting - Tuesday, March 27

Our next club meeting will be held at Kurt and Kate's house, 2469 Selkirk Drive on Dilworth Mountain, starting at 7 p.m..
Click here for a Google map.

The Marshall Plan: It’s Tough Being The King

Written by: Marshall Pruett
From SPEEDTV.com

March 23, 2007

Being the King has its advantages. It also carries some risks. Chief amongst those risks is the knowledge that at some point in time, a new king will be sitting on your throne. If you're lucky, the new king will have left your head attached to your body. In the case of the Mazda Miata, Gen II Miata, and today, the MX-5, the king of sporty, affordable two-seaters must be outright bored when pondering who'll be next in line to try and knock it from its near twenty-year reign as king of the affordable sports car. That's not to say there haven't been some good tries. Toyota's "Mister Two" (MR2) was popular before the Miata arrived in '89, and in fact, the MR2 was deposed by the Miata. The MR2 had some interesting features with its mid-ship engine, offering of a turbo, and varied from ‘cute’ to oddly misshapen over its fifteen year lifespan.

In the wake of the MR2 and Fiero, Mazda unveiled their Miata—a small, light, simple, and responsive sports car. It was uncomplicated. It wasn’t overly stylized like its competitors, and thus wouldn’t risk ageing prematurely. Its designers and engineers paid special attention to the handling, delivering an incredibly poised, balanced, and nimble driving experience.

Those areas of special attention are what sealed the fates of its rivals upon its introduction seventeen years ago. Today, companies like General Motors and Daimler Chrysler are still firing salvos across the Miata’s bow but have yet to score a direct hit.

Of the new cars angling for the Miata’s (now MX-5’s) crown, two very serious, but very different takes on the affordable two-seater sports car have emerged: the Pontiac Solstice (also badged as a Saturn Sky) and the Dodge Demon.

Where the range of Miata’s have always been born of the older tradition of lightweight and modest power, the Solstice and Demon have followed the more modern approaches of more weight with more power to move that weight.

It’s a distinctly Japanese vs. American clash of cultural philosophies. Like the English Lotus Elan, my first dream car, the Japanese have mastered the concept of extracting performance, winning performances, by opting for low curb weights and small displacement.

The 2007 MX-5, the heaviest of the Miata breed, comes in at just over 2400 pounds, and pumps out 170 normally aspirated horsepower. The turbocharged Pontiac Solstice GXP makes 260 horsepower, and comes in nearly 600 pounds heavier than the MX-5.

Where handling is key in the small sports car category, the Solstice can boast some impressive 0-60 times, but if acceleration was the goal, there are a lot of other cars being built that do little more than accelerate impressively. A lot of power and a lot of weight don’t fit in this category, so while the Solstice has been a solid seller, they’ve hardly replaced the MX-5 as a favorite car to take to the track.

I’m actually a big fan of the Solstice, and think its one of the smartest moves GM’s made in some time; if a new category of mid-sized two-seater sports cars gains momentum, the Solstice/Sky would be a natural leader.

The Dodge Demon concept, while still only a concept, calls for the same power as the MX-5, and a curb weight of something like 2600 pounds. Not to be a pessimist, but I’m not going to be surprised when the final weight of the Demon grows closer to 2800 pounds.

If the car has some form of Mercedes suspension engineering influence, it could stand a chance at bothering the MX-5, but if it retains a more Dodge-like design, we’ll be faced with another pretender to the crown.

Dodge Demon

Pontiac Solstice

In an era of retro car designs that call back to popular models of the 60’s, there’s something pure and respectable about the reign of the Miata as king of the affordable sports cars. It drew from small sports car design philosophies of the ‘60’s like the Lotus Elan long before going retro became cool. What made sense in the ‘60’s made sense when the Miata was launched for the ‘90’s, and still makes sense today.

Other manufacturers, hoping to beat the Miata in sales or public interest by building a small sports car while reaching back to the ‘60’s, but to adopt the higher weight/higher power approach are missing the spirit of what attracts people to buy such cars.

For their clear understanding of what these cars should be, Mazda’s had a long and deserved reign in this car category.

Like the old saying goes, “To be ‘The Man,’ you’ve got to beat ‘The Man.’

Seventeen years later, Old King Miata and the new heir MX-5 are still waiting for a worthy challenger to take their crown.

Marshall Pruett is Automotive Editor for SPEEDTV.com. Pruett also covers the SPEED World Challenge series and provides other racing features and commentary. Marshall grew up at "Pruett's Olde English Garage," his father's shelter for abused foreign cars, and spent his childhood being dragged across the West Coast to help with his dad's amateur racing exploits. A rather predictable fascination with cars and working for racing teams soon followed. He's since retired from that career in motorsports, but continues to play with street cars and race cars for a variety of auto manufacturers. He can be reached at marshall.pruett@speedtv.com

Club Meeting - Tuesday, February 27

Our next club meeting will be held at Al and Helen Blower's 8 house, 4230 Eso Court in the Mission, starting at 7 p.m..
Click here for a Google map.

Mazda tops in reliability

From Mazda Motor Corporation

February 19, 2007

Mazda vehicles have claimed the top place in one of the world’s largest-ever reports on vehicle reliability. Nearly 92 percent of the Mazda cars studied, including the MX-5 Miata, aged between three and nine years old, suffered no mechanical failure of any type – outperforming all other brands.

The report, which was issued by independent automotive extended-warranty specialists, Warranty Direct, looked at the reliability of more than 450,000 vehicles from 33 manufacturers, across the United States and United Kingdom. The resulting ‘Reliability League Table’ shows the number of failures reported for every 100 vehicles covered by Warranty Direct’s policies. Mazda was rated number one with a failure rate of just 8.04 percent of vehicles aged between three and nine years old.

“The exceptional build-quality and long-term reliability of Mazda vehicles is something we have been proud of for quite some time,” said Jim O’Sullivan, President and CEO, Mazda North American Operations. “The findings of this recent report reinforce what we’ve believed all along – that Mazda reliability is not just very good, it’s the best. These results are proof that Mazda builds stylish and exciting vehicles without sacrificing quality or reliability.”

Warranty Direct ‘Reliability League Table’ 2007, Top 10 Results

* Number of mechanical failures reported by policy holders for every 100 vehicles aged between three and nine years old.

Mazda Builds 800,000th Roadster

From Mazda Motor Corporation Hiroshima, Japan February 7, 2007 Total production of Mazda Motor Corporation’s Roadster reached 800,000 units on January 30, 2007. This significant milestone was achieved 17 years and nine months after production commenced in April 1989. The Roadster was certified as the world’s top selling lightweight, open-top, two-seat sports car by Guinness World Records of the U.K. when production reached 531,890 units in May 2000. Now that cumulative production has topped 800,000 units, Mazda is reapplying with the Guinness organization to have the record updated. The Roadster is known as the MX-5 in Europe and North America.		Mazda's 800,000th MX-5 roadster; a soft top model destined for the North American market.
The current third generation Roadster was launched in August 2005. As a lightweight, open-top sports car, it features enhanced driving performance through carefully scrutinized savings in body weight, optimal weight distribution and the latest features to meet safety and environmental requirements. In August 2006, Mazda added the Power Retractable Hard Top model to the Roadster lineup. It features a groundbreaking electric roof system that doesn’t reduce trunk space at all. To date, the Roadster has won more than 40 awards, including 2005-2006 Japan Car of The Year, and enjoys worldwide acclaim. Mazda will continue to evolve the Roadster and carry forward the “Jinba Ittai” (rider and horse as one) concept of the original, so that even more people will have the chance to experience the fun of a car that responds precisely as the driver intents.