Mk2 UK launch date and early cars still on the road

[Salsin]

Haven’t been on the forum for a few months (I know, I know!) and just spotted that last September Martin Traynor asked about the launch date of the Mk2 here in UK. That topic has now closed but I’d like to add a bit more information and once again reach out to any other early Mk2 owners in the Club.

Roadster Robbie replied that “April 25th 1998 rings a bell.”
I can confirm that he is correct. After a press launch on the French Riviera, the car went on sale here on Saturday, April 25th.
My car was first registered on 30th April, a mere 5 days later (and the first owner was so keen that he didn’t wait and tax it as from May 1st). I’m the third owner and have been fortunate to be able to contact both previous owners.

I am therefore very keen to find out if mine is the earliest of my exact specification (see below) still on the road.
Mk2, 1.8 iS, Green
My VIN number ends 2900.
I would love to hear from anyone who owns one - same spec./ colour etc. - but with a lower VIN number; or a same spec. car with a higher VIN no. but registered BEFORE 30th April.
I did ask once before on the forum and also via the club magazine but didn’t hear from anyone.

From my research, I know that my car came off the production line on 19th February and arrived on the dockside here on 14th April before finding its way to a dealership in south London.
One person I spoke to (who was working for the Mazda importer at that time- Mazda UK didn’t exist then) says he thinks that about 200 cars were prepared for the UK launch. How many of those are still on the road is not known. How many of those were green 1.8 iS models is also not known.
(Traditionally, there has always been a suspicion here in the UK that a green car is “unlucky” and a Mazda salesman even told me that himself, so I’m guessing that not many were ordered by the dealers in green!)
To date, I have only discovered one other (of my exact spec.) still on the road. It was first registered on 7 April in Kent (where the importer was based) so is clearly one of that initial launch batch.
So, to reiterate, if you own a Mk2 1.8iS in Racing Green Mica with a VIN no. which ends lower than 2900; or if you own one with a higher VIN no. but registered before 30th April, please contact me as I’d love to compare notes.

[ast]

R460 CKO is sorned, registered in March 1998
R461 CKO was last MOT’d 2015

R459 CKO; March 1998, no MOT, tax
R458 CKO; 12 March 1998, no MOT, tax
R457 CKO ; 12 March 1998, no MOT, tax
R456 CKO; 12 March 1998, no MOT, tax. But MOT only just expired, A bronze one
R455 CKO; In MOT, taxed to November, so still in use
R454 CKO; in MOT until October, taxed, 12-3-98
R453 CKO; dead since 2014
R452 CKO; dead since 2017
R451 CKO; untaxed since 2005
R450 CKO ; MOTed
R449 CKO; MOTed
R448 CKO; no MOT since 2015

R448 CKO might well be the oldest UK spec NB MX5. R449 CKO is the oldest still on the road.

[Salsin]

Thanks for that interesting info.
Of all the cars listed, I note (after checking the DVLA website) that only one of them is green, the same colour as mine. That seems to bear out my theory that green was not a popular colour!
That one is R448 CKO which hasn’t been taxed/MOT’d since 2015 but is listed as “SORN”. However, I also note that the “export marker” field is set to ‘Yes’ so I assume that it is no longer in this country.

I am also aware that R447 CKO was a green car, but that failed its MOT in 2014 and hasn’t been taxed or SORN’d since then. That car too has the “export marker” field showing as ‘Yes’ so I assume that car also may have been exported.

I am also aware of R359 MKO, first registered in Kent on 7/4/98. This would have been another one registered by the importer as part of the launch fleet. This is a green 1.8 iS like mine and is still taxed/MOT’d. This is potentially the oldest green 1.8 iS still on the road. If anyone can put me in touch with the current owner, I’d be very grateful.

[Bullit2005]

Hi Ast

Excellent Research

In Similar Vein…I’ve always believed I’ve got one of the last NBs before the NC

VIN No Starts JMZNB…Ends 9167

She’s Taxed/MOT’ed

Please don’t publish any more facts about her on the Public Forum

But I’d be interested to know whether my belief is true

Kindest

[Roadster_Robbie]

Hi Salsin. I’ve found a better way to query my VIN database and reckon that 324 1.8 NB that were registered in the UK were built before yours. I’m working through finding how many were green and how many green ones were iS spec. It’ll still probably take me a few evenings to run through each VIN but I’ll post some data once I’ve done it.

I’ve so far checked 122 VINs and found 37 green MX-5. Which ironically is the most popular colour so far…

[Salsin]

Hi Robbie,
Wow. That would be wonderful. Thank you so much.
Well, that blows my theory about green being unlucky!!

[Roadster_Robbie]

Here’s some stats from the data that I’ve got…

For 1800cc NB MX-5 with VIN serial numbers between 100021 and 102900 that have at some point been registered in the UK…

31 were Brilliant Black
37 were Classic Red
55 were Racing Blue
65 were Racing Silver
67 were Racing Green
69 were Racing Bronze

Only 95 were 1.8iS spec (which surprised me somewhat)

22 of the 1.8iS spec MX-5s were Racing Green

I’ve searched the reg numbers of the Racing Green 1.8iS cars on the DVLA MOT website and of the ones that return a result, 13 of them have a registration date of April 30th 1998 or earlier.

So your MX-5 may have at some point been the 22nd oldest Racing Green 1.8iS NB in the UK.

[Roadster_Robbie]

I think that R462 might be the oldest UK spec NB in the UK (#20), R449 CKO is eight cars newer and R448 CKO over 200 cars newer.

R462 seems to be in Northern Ireland now looking at the MOT history.

[Salsin]

Hi Robbie,
Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to analyse this.
My understanding is that Black and Red were the only standard colours at the time, with Blue, Silver, Green and Bronze being an “extra cost” option. I imagine that MCL and the dealers tried to encourage customers towards these last four, to enhance their margins! So I’'m not surprised that these last four colours are the most popular.
I’m still surprised by the popularity of green, although I note that the photos in the launch brochure only showed two colours, mostly bronze but a few of a green car.
Which makes me wonder - and here I would need the thoughts of someone who was involved with MCL at the time. Were MCL the decision-makers re colour, or did Mazda in Japan dictate? Is it possible the Mazda themselves liked green, or that it was perhaps popular in other countries and that the UK was “persuaded” to take those colours to help production scheduling?

As an analogy, many years ago I worked for the UK arm of a multi-national. All our marketing was created in Switzerland. The Swiss chap involved in writing brochures, manuals etc. had lived in US for some years and spoke very good English. But he insisted that I check every single publication so that it read as if it had been written by an Englishman. That is one extreme. At the other end, I’m sure you have all read instruction manuals where the English, both spelling and grammar, is so bad that it is clear that no English person had been asked to vet it before publication. So, sometimes, the importer is simply presented with a “this is what you are getting” scenario.
Any thoughts?

[ast]

Technically a VIN is assigned to a car long before it is built. Its not assigned as the car comes off the line. Its probably not possible to determine, from a group of cars built on the same day, which is “oldest” with any real certainty. For instance, is body shell painting completed in batches. On the day these UK cars were built, also US, JDM, EUDM, AUDM,CaNDM etc etc cars were being made at the same time.

Old photo of RX7s shows cars in different colours undergoing final checks

A lot of red MX5s

White cars of various models:

Mazda Factory Assembly Plant For MX 5, CX 5, and CX 9

Cars are batch painted in the same colour; but the chassis numbers are put on before this? And then later off, the bodies get all mixed up. Do they keep in sequence?

With cars made on the same day, its probably hard/impossible to determine which one was finished first, or finished last.

[Roadster_Robbie]

So that exercise was a waste of my time then…

[Mad_Malc]

Absolutely ‘NO it was not’, don’t let them ---------

[Salsin]

Hi Robbie,
No. Definitely not a waste of time.
I found your info very interesting.
For my own specific research, I will be basing my yardstick of “age” based on date of first registration here, but if I found that two or more were registered on the same day, then I would go back to the VIN number to decide which is “oldest”.

[ast]

@Roadster_Robbie

So that exercise was a waste of my time then…

Where the “first one” really matters is the first day of production, which I think was on 10th December 1997 or thereabouts, all Mazda Roadsters I think. I don’t know if any of those early NBs had any quirks in the same way very early Mk1s (all US Miatas) had.

(white 1.8 RS)

(1.6 manual in silver)

Or maybe later on, VINs are applied to a car last of all. Do NBs have a stamped VIN anywhere on the car, or just on a tag sitting on the firewall/dashboard? NAs are stamped with a chassis number (not VIN) behind the engine block.

Going back to the OP’s 17-Feb-1998 production date.

This is the first Roadster off the line on 17-2-98

Another source tells me this was a 6-speed V-Spec with all the toys, in PT white.

And the last JDM Roadster on that day was

An RS model in 18K Racing Bronze.
First 1.6 Roadster

An Automatic S-Package in 18G silver

And the last

A manual S-Package, also 18G silver

Earlier, when they were cranking up NB production, nb8c-100589 to nb8c-100618 represented a day’s production of 1.8s on 10-1-98, and nb6c-100356 to nb6c-100365 1.6s on the same day.

Later, on what would have been my 30th birthday, the 1.6 production was represented by nb6c-104878 to nb6c-104885 and zero 1.8s produced that day.

Quite small numbers.

Mazda Roadster monthly sales:

So by August, sales had slumped to 16 or so a day.

We don’t have monthly UK sales for 1998

Which averages 27 a day, but probably 50 sales a day or so at the start, then falling to 15-20 a day in H2.

US sales

So peak sales in July 1998, 84 cars a day.

[Roadster_Robbie]

You didn’t have to justify anything, I accepted your theory. The last six digits of the VIN are not an accurate measure of the order that the cars are produced.