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Mazda hands over first factory-restored Miata

In August 2017, Mazda announced that it will be offering factory quality restoration work for the original, NA body Mazda MX-5 Miata introduced in 1989. The program also included parts support, as Mazda wants to underline how much the original Miata still means to it. The program was launched with exemplary work carried out on a Miata owned by Mazda, but the first customer car has now been finished. The first car was picked from 600 applications sent to Mazda. Out of all these cars needing factory certified work, the 1992 British Racing Green V-Special owned by retired tomato farmer Keiji Nishimoto was chosen to be the first. The Eunos-badged limited-edition car was bought new by Nishimoto, and he told Mazda the car had been instrumental in creating some wonderful road-trip memories. The V-Special edition came in a British roadster-style color combination: "Neo" green over tan leather, complete with a retro-style Nardi wood wheel. The car also has a front strut bar and a limited-slip differential. Nishimoto had already been planning to get his car restored, but getting it done by Mazda during the summer was even better. The car was finished in August, and it was officially handed over to its owner in September. To have owned and enjoyed a car for a quarter-century and getting a chance to experience it in as-new condition again must be a fantastic experience. Nishimoto says the car is now good for another 25 years of driving. For the time being, the TUV Rheinland certified restoration program is only available for Japanese customers. But since a large percentage of first-generation Miatas are still on the road, and a large percentage of those will need bodywork done in all the usual places, we would happily see Mazda reach out to European and American customers as well. Related Video:

Junkyard Gem: 1986 Mazda 323 DX Hatchback

Mazda built generation after generation of the Familia, starting with the Giugiaro-styled machines of the 1960s. The first Familia that sold well in North America was called the GLC (for "Great Little Car"), and it began life as a rear-wheel-drive cousin to the RX-7 before the Familia went to a front-wheel-drive platform for the 1981 model year. The GLC name stuck around these parts through 1985 — and I've documented a few discarded examples of these now-rare machines during my junkyard travels — before getting the 323 name starting in the 1986 model year. It's no sweat to find 1990s 323s in junkyards, but I've been scouring the car graveyards of the land for the elusive early 323 and, finally, found this moss-encrusted '86 in a San Francisco Bay Area yard. BMW popularized the lower-case-i nomenclature for fuel-injected cars with the first 3-Series back in the 1977 model year, and Mazda wasted no time making "1.6i" badges to tout the futuristic technology under the hood of their low-priced econo-commuter a decade later. At a time when most Civics had carburetors (and the notorious "Map of the Universe" diagram to untangle the underhood vacuum lines), the electronically fuel-injected engine in this car was a major selling point indeed. It wouldn't be many more years before the wretched Subaru Justy was the final carbureted Japanese car available in America, but this 1.6-liter B6 four-cylinder (which evolved into the engine that, flipped 90 degrees, powered the early Miatas) was high-tech stuff for a cheap car in 1986. Just 84 horsepower, but they were clean and reliable horses. In the middle 1980s, the common perception in North America was that you had to buy a Honda or Toyota if you wanted an affordable car that could make it to 200,000 miles. This 323 held together just as well as most Tercels or Civics from 1986. Of course, I've seen a junkyard RX-7 with 393,854 miles, so you just never know. When you see lots of moss and lichens on a car in a Northern California junkyard, you know it spent years — maybe decades — languishing in a shady outdoor spot. Perhaps this car racked up 20,000 miles per year slogging through a harrowing Lodi-to-Sausalito commute, then got parked and forgotten in 1996. We'll never know. With the optional automatic transmission — nearly every early 323 I've seen had the 5-speed manual — this car wouldn't have been much fun to drive. Point A to Point B would have been fine, though.

Aussie Mazda MX-5 Miata specs leak suggests power loss

Mazda's 2016 MX-5 Miata reveal didn't include much in the way of specifications, but the car's debut seems to have blown the lid off of the rumormill, with the latest word out of Australia including fresh claims of curb weight and engine output.
Before delving into the findings from Motoring.com, we're going to take a moment to find a few grains of salt. It's not that we don't trust the Oz publication, it's just that we wouldn't be surprised to learn their car's specifications will vary from that of our eventual North American car.
Of course, we don't expect the footprint of the new ND model to itself to differ much - it will still be the most compact Miata ever - overall length is expected to check in at just over 154 inches - that's about 1.4 inches shorter than the original NA Miata and over 4 inches shorter than today's NC generation, yet it'll ride atop a longer wheelbase and be slightly wider while sitting lower to the ground.