Review: Mazda MX‑5 RF

Mazda has a fine history with coupes: think the Sixties Cosmo Sport with its rotary engine, or the BTCC-slaying RX-7, or how about the MX-6 of the early Nineties which formed the basis of Ford’s Probe, or the MX-3 launched in 1992, with the smallest V6 engine of its time, at 1.8 litres. 

And now, the MX-5 RF. It looks suspiciously like a Targa, with a hardtop section that rises and folds in two pieces between flying buttresses at the back, leaving a glass wind-deflecting screen up. It’s a complicated affair that takes 13 seconds to dissolve into the boot. Cleverly, the mechanism doesn’t diminish boot space, so there’s still home for two pieces of decent carry-on luggage for that spirited weekend away.

But it’s not a targa, officially, as bits of metal and glass stay in place. Then again, it’s not a convertible and it’s not a sealed coupe, as the odd bit of wind noise attests when the roof is up. What it is, undoubtedly, in the final analysis, is a fine looking car, with those buttresses adding extra muscle to the rear haunches, so that you could no longer in all fairness call this a hairdresser’s car. It looks like the solid-handling, quality-built, confident roadster it has always been, so hurrah for that. 

Engines on offer remain the same as for the convertible: a 1.5-litre petrol with 129bhp, and a 2.0-litre petrol with 158bhp. Mazda’s superb short-shifting six-speed manual gearbox is still a driver’s delight, but oddly there’s now an automatic on offer too: frankly, anyone who takes this option needs shooting, especially for the MX-5 iteration that most screams “dynamic drive”, but there it is; Mazda must know there’s a market for it.

We tested both engines, and found the 1.5-litre a delight; you do have to row the gears along a bit if you are two up and want to properly shift it, but Mazdas engines have always preferred the red-line end of the rpm spectrum anyway, and this feels like the better match for this fleet-of-foot roadster.

The roof, mostly aluminium but with a steel section for torsional rigidity, weighs in at 45kg, which has necessitated slight revisions to the suspension set-up, but you’d be hard-pushed to notice the difference to the ride; perhaps the finer steerers might notice a slightly softer rear end. 

If you go for the 2.0-litre version in Sport Nav form which, after the first 500 limited-edition launch Editions are sold, will be the highest spec, you get 17in wheels, a limited-slip diff, Bilstein Sport suspension and a strut brace… at £25,695 that might be the option to match these more aggressive looks of the RF, but for pootling round lanes, the base SE-L Nav with its fabric seats, air-con, touchscreen display, satnav, Bluetooth, cruise control and smart body-coloured plastic door inserts feels fresh, funky and full of energy.

Mazda was keen to point out the keen pricing of the MX-5 today, and it is a startling demonstration of how manufacturers have kept prices low through industry efficiencies: in 1990, a 1.6 MX-5 cost £14,250, which equates to £34,000 in today’s money. The RF starts at £22,195, rising to £28,995 if you want one of those first Launch Edition 2.0-litre cars. The model goes on sale in March, but we’d wait until April when the 1.5-litre version is launched because in this guise, the MX-5 RF continues to provide more fun than you can shake a stick at.