My wife and I had an unexpected experience at the rally.
Whilst having lunch back at our car after the Revolvers had finished, we were approached by a chap from Mazda UK. He explained they were filming for a feature called The Sight, Sound and Touch/Feel of the MX-5 and would we mind participating. My wife, thinking it would be funny to see me being filmed touching my own car, immediately agreed.
Her amusement was short-lived as he thanked us, and then said to my wife they they would like to use her. I guess I’m not that photogenic 
, and cue whisperings about her ending up in some ASMR videos on mx5fans.com, but she couldn’t really back out now, after so enthusiastically agreeing just seconds earlier.
The camera crew wanted 5 shots:
- A low swooping pass across the front of the car whilst my wife leaned against the passenger side, staring wistfully at a yonder tree.
- A close up of her hand pressing the start button and then moving it back to the steering wheel. This took multiple attempts because she had forgotten how to start an MX-5. Her car is an automatic where you hold the brake pedal and press a button. Despite my repeated opening and closing the driver’s door and saying ‘Press the clutch’ she appeared to have forgotten how manual drive cars work. We got there eventually!
- A close up of the exhausts whilst the car was being started. Fortunately I had taken Mad_Malc’s advice on these forums and given the pipes a quick Autosol treatment inside and out the previous day.
- A close up of the engine whilst it was idling. As the car is only 10 days old, the engine bay is still shiny.
- My only contribution, a following close up of a wheel as I drove forward about 5 metres.
After they’d gone we realised we hadn’t asked where the footage might be used. I’m guessing, if it turns up anywhere, it will likely be the Mazda UK Youtube channel.
I’m quite looking forward to finding it, my wife less so!
