97 Mazda Miata on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Miata driver pulls off hilariously diabolical move in fender-to-fender racing

Racing is all about finding the little advantages over competitors that allow you to get ahead. Sometimes those are legitimate means - like being able to take advantage of a better line through a corner - and other times drivers get a little more creative for a leg up over opponents. Sometimes things might even go a little too far. Case in point: just watch the opening of this Mazda MX-5 Cup race from Silverstone in the UK.
According to the YouTube description, we're riding with James Rogers in this video, and he appears to be pretty talented behind the wheel. Rogers has a great start from fifth that has him in third within just a few corners. He starts stalking the top two drivers, who are already having a fantastic race themselves, but then we see that the person in second is clearly willing to do whatever it takes to win. Just watch the video, and you'll see what we mean. Bravo (?) to that racer for some very quick, albeit fiendish, thinking.

The Miata gives me a new perspective on the world

The Miata: making everything a new experience and turning low-beam headlights into high-beams since 1989. That's what happens when you're basically sitting on the ground, something I've become intimately familiar with when driving our long-term 2016 MX-5 Club. I am not a tall person. Far from it. In most cars I drive, I crank the seat height up close to maximum as soon as I get in. That's easy in the Miata because there's no height adjustment at all. Couple that with the facts that the seat is thin and the car barely hovers off of the pavement, and my eyes end up sitting at the height of most car's exhaust systems. That results in a lot of examining other cars' bumpers in traffic. And one day recently, it almost led to me missing my exit from Interstate 94, part of the route I take every day to work. Everything just looks different from down here – it is quite literally a different point of view from what I'm used to. And then there's the issue of night driving. When you're this low down and stuck in traffic, the headlights of cars following look extremely bright (and incredibly close). They're not, of course, you're just lower than every other driver on the road so it seems like you're staring down high-beams in the rearview mirror. I still love the Miata. It's just not the best commuter vehicle, which should come as a surprise to precisely no one. But when a hole opens up in traffic, the Miata and I are the first to fill it. I just hope the other cars see me. Related Video: Mazda Long-Term Garage Convertible Lightweight Vehicles Performance

Why is it called Mazda CX-30? Plus other questions answered

GENEVA — Mazda just introduced its latest crossover, the CX-30, and it left us raising an eyebrow. It's planned for a global release, including the United States, and it's supposed to slot between two compact crossovers that one might not think had room for another model. Plus it has a name that doesn't fit Mazda's typical nomenclature. So we thought we'd take a little time to explain some of those things, starting with the name. Mazda arrived at the CX-30 name because of a self-created problem: the Chinese Mazda CX-4. The CX-4 name would be perfect for the CX-30, since it would fall right between the CX-3 and CX-5 where it's positioned. But with the name taken, and evidently no plans to discontinue, replace, or rename that Chinese model, Mazda needed something else, and fractions and decimals weren't on the table. So appending a zero was the plan. Talking with a Mazda representative, there were hints, though no concrete confirmation, that this naming scheme could possibly spread throughout the Mazda line. There would be advantages to such a system, such as bringing the CX-30 into line with other Mazda products, but it would also provide room for other in-between models named CX-35, CX-25, etc. Now for the size. Mazda says it fits between the CX-3 and CX-5, both of which will be sold alongside it for the foreseeable future. But is it closer to one than the other? Length-wise, the CX-30 is 4.7 inches longer than the CX-3 and 5.9 inches shorter than the CX-5. It's also an inch wider than CX-3 and 1.8 inches narrower than CX-5. Interestingly, the CX-30 and CX-3 are the same height, which is 5.9 inches shorter than the CX-5. The CX-30 does have a bit more ground clearance than the CX-3, but only by a few hundredths of an inch. To add some context outside the Mazda brand, the CX-30's size also puts it on par with crossovers such as the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross, Subaru Crosstrek and Jeep Compass. All of those are sort of in-betweeners themselves. By contrast, the CX-3 is one of the smallest subcompact crossovers and aligns more closely with a Hyundai Kona. In other words, there actually was a segment gap Mazda could fill as the CX-30 fall pretty squarely between the CX-3 and CX-5. As such, we also imagine that pricing will fall between the two. The CX-3 starts at $21,435 and the CX-5 at $25,395. So about $23,000 seems reasonable for the base Skyactiv 2.0-liter engine, and probably more for the Skyactiv-X engine.