Enjoy the fiat… Ta ta Davyo
As I said Davio, there are ways of expressing your opinion with a little more tact. It was your first post in particular that may have been more tactful. Of course there is freedom of opinion but you could have just stated that you enjoyed driving the Fiat 124 more without being so particularly offensive about the ND. I hope and I am sure that you will love owning your fiat 124 as many others do. Cheers.
Thanks its a lovely car in S design and collect it on Friday.Keeping my 3 as my ragging about car though.I’ve put to much into it with the Seatsugeons leather,Royal steering wheel upgrade,coilovers,brand new alloys and tires and full brake overhall.Couldnt bare to part with it,plus i wouldnt even get what ive spenton it if i traded it in.
I’ve read through all this and feel that everyone is entitled to their opinion, including me therefore, I’d just like to say, I love my car
I don’t get out in it that much ( average 4-6k a year) but when I do, I enjoy it very much. It’s the ( in some folks eyes) lowly, underperforming 1800 roadster version, devoid of LSD, DSC, 6sp, A/C etc, etc and I love it! Doesn’t make it a better or worse car than anyone else’s, it makes it mine
bought and paid for, ready to enjoy as and when. Everyone to their own I suppose, which is, for me, the allure of these cars as they can be all things to all folk in one form or another. Not considered a ND as I feel it would be an extravagance for me to splash my hard earned cash out on such a thing, i bought an 8 year old car (at the time) instead and spent a few quid getting it to how I wanted it. Do you know though, I’d probably get the 1.5 litre ND version if I was in the market? Or more likely the FIAT 124 as I prefer the styling cues of that model, again, only my opinion. It’s nice to dream of such things
let everyone do what they want, just because it’s not what you or I would do, doesn’t make it wrong or right. It’s these very cars that brings us all to this particular forum after all, regardless of the year, model, engine capacity etc. Live and let live sort of.
Barrie
Wow! Can I be offended that you are offended by the way comments might be put across?
For goodness sake. So he does not like the way the MK4 looks and wants a engine that does not require a gear change. So, I think, the Fiat looks like the designers couldn’t be bothered to look past the book of Ford Granada styling and it is totally at odds with the modern interior, but at least the styling does come form an age when people were not offended by everything.
The Fiat is still, at the end of the day, basically a 5 in a party frock plus a good few styling Q’s.
The OP is still in the family so to speak anyway. He’s a Mk3 nut as well…so fair play.
It’s not for everyone, but I’d pick the so called Fiat as well…just to be a bit different!
Hopefully the fact it’s built in our beloved Hiroshima means:
Fixing
It
Again
Tomorrow
…is just an old joke.
Peace people…peace.
There’s shovel fulls of Life Shyte to deal with without inventing more.
NickD I am no snowflake, but “ok driven hard but around the doors god its rubbish.” whatever that means, I think is a little too disparaging. I don’t own a 1.5 ND but it is a very nice car to drive. Nothing wrong with saying you don’t like the looks or it may be a little under-powered for some, as it was for me, but to say it is “rubbish”? Sorry if I have offended you by being offended
.
I agree with Davyo’s comments regarding the ND. Much prefer the look and shape of the earlier marks - headlamps look too small In my opinion and don’t seem to suit the car… What happened to free speech?
However it doesn’t really matter what I think. What ever mark you have and enjoy is personal to the owner but nothing wrong with having an opinion.
Andrew
[/quote]
Well, according to Mazda, the MX-5 is a sportscar; they have repeatedly used the term in press releases:
http://www2.mazda.com/en/publicity/release/2011/201102/110204a.html
[quote]
An interesting point that Saz has highlighted in his recent post.
When I first joined this club and forum a couple of years ago, there was a thread active at the time on this very subject, and a member pointed out that the first MX-5s were labelled by Mazda as ‘Eunos Roadsters’, and that is how they were badged.
Over the years then, Mazda have seemingly changed their tune, and now call it a sports car. This is perhaps because everyone else has always called it a sports car anyway, because that is how people the world over have always viewed the roadster concept.
Some time ago, I Googled ‘British roadsters’, and the web site that popped up showed photographs of MG Midgets, Austin Healey Sprites, Triumph Spitfires, Sunbeam Alpines, Jaguar E-Types, MGAs and MGBs, Triumph TRs of various ages etc etc - cars which I had always been brought up to call sports cars.
Maybe we’re just being a bit pedantic over words. The thing is though, that there is a You Tube video by a certain motoring journalist, who, when road-testing an MX-5, gives his opinion that it was a poor ‘sports car’, but a good ‘roadster’ !
This debate could probably go in forever - I hope it won’t, because it would be impossible to get everyone to agree, and anyway, I’m getting bored.
I’m not sure of the definition of sports cars but, having driven Catehams, Lotus’s, Lancias, MGBs, RX7s, RX8s, BMWs, MX5s of the NB, NC and ND iterations, I’m in no doubt that the current MX5 is a sports car. The only sportier thing I have ever driven was a Caterham, which was not a sensible ownership proposition. Lotus Elise was actually quite a similar drive albeit faster and harsher, I couldn’t live with one these days, for too impractical. Any car could be criticised, if I was designing the ND there are a couple of things I would change but IMHO it’s brilliant. As for the Flat 124, sorry but I’d be embarrassed to be seen in one. Each to his own but I hate the looks, and how embarrassing is it for a major European car maker to have to buy the mechanicals from somebody else !!
Not sure why FIAT would be embarrassed? They obviously thought the Mazda platform was good enough for them to use to relaunch the 124? As for mechanicals, FIAT have their own engines in this car, although they did choose to use the NC gearbox I admit. TBH, manufacturers sharing of platforms, etc, across several marques is commonplace and not at all embarrassing for them.
Barrie
Here’s a list of things members have done to MX-5s.
Fitted different front and rear bumpers.
Fitted body kits.
Fitted front and rear splitters.
Fitted different front ends such as Garage Vary.
Totally changed interiors.
Fitted non-standard exhausts.
Turbocharged engines.
Supercharged engines.
Swapped engine for Jaguar 3.0l V6.
Swapped engine for Ford 2.5l.
Swapped engine for Rover 3.5l V8.
Converted to Exocet and other kit cars.
Many of these cars are radically altered and vary more from the original MX-5 than the Fiat 124 varies from the ND Mazda.
The vast majority of the parts of my ND are interchangeable with a Fiat 124. Not one part is interchangeable with an NA.
Why would I not feel camaraderie with Fiat 124 owners when I feel it in bucketfuls for owners of NA, NB and NC?
The other thing to consider with the 1.5 is that it’s 100kg lighter than the 2.0
That’s nearly 16 stone so basically the 2,0 is driving round with a fat bloke concealed somewhere in the car
That bloke isn’t concealed in mine, he’s in the driving seat.
You calling me fat pal?
I’ve got a wannabe “Lotus” look Eunoch nose badge.
Does that count too?
Lotus look-a-like badges are fine. Your car, call it what you like. There are quite a few turning up now with Fiat badges but we still know what they really are.
Dodge?
Well there are theories about why the 124 even exists, as it was supposed to be an Alfa Romeo, until quite late into the project; the official line is that the now-departed FCA chairman decided that there was no way he could countenance an Alfa Romeo badge on a Japanese car (but its ok to put on a Fiat badge, because, like, who cares where a Fiat is made). The unofficial reason suggested is that the ND chassis is not good enough for a V6 (ie. the ride, NVH etc, didn’t match the price point FCA had in mind, which presumably was closer to the Jag F-Type than the Mazda MX5)
Timelines:
2011:: Mazda starts on ND. Its a cleansheet design.
June 2011: Clay models from different parts of Mazda completed.
February 2012: Proposals narrowed down to 3.
2012: Mazda and Alfa Romeo announce a deal to share platforms.
October 2013: Mazda Japan design accepted to go forward
October 2013: Photos start appearing of ND mules undergoing testing in Germany. Appears to be disguised MX5.
Nov 2013: Fiat 124/ Alfa mules testing in US
December 2013: ND design frozen
January 2013: Detroit testing of ND mules
January 2013: Nazda and FCA confirm Alfa Romeo agreement.
May 2014: Lightly disguised ND prototypes spotted road testing in California
May 2014: 124 mules with Fiat engines spotted in US.
Fiat mule
May 2014: Rumors start to circulate that FCA is rethinking the Alfa Romeo
August 2014: Undisguised NDs seen in Japan
September 2014: ND launched
December 2014: Agreement between FCA and Mazda modified, to replace Alfa Romeo with Fiat
June 2015: Fiat complains the ND platform is too small and not Italian enough, to be an Alfa Romeo
August 2015: 124 prototypes spotted road testing in US
Here is the thing, Fiat-Alfa Romeo mules were spotted undergoing testing in November 2013, not long after Mazda. The two mules are distinguishable by the number of tailpipes. The later June 2013 mule, when the driver helpfully popped the hood to reveal the ugly Punto turbo engine, doesn’t look any different from the Nov 2013 mules. Seems reasonable to assume that FCA were using 4 cylinder turbos from the get go. The two cars, when road testing, seemed to have development proceeding roughly in parallel, so an Alfa Romeo styling buck was probably reasonably advance. The June 2014 car is clearly, under the tupperware, a 124, which has zero resemblance to an Alfa Romeo. Was an Alfa Romeo ever seriously contemplated? Was the 124 quickly knocked up on the back of a cigarette box, and resemblance to Dodges of the era not uncoincidental. The original 124 was a conveniently generic design. The headlight-grill relationship would also suit a Dodge, FCA’s sporting American brand.
How much of the 124 is Alfa Romeo, and how much is the 6 month redesign? I would think the front and rear wings were pretty much fixed, and the bumper covers were redesigned
This is the closest to 124 sketches that are available:
We’ll never know. All there was was an Autocar report that said the Alfa design was so stunning it forced Mazda into a redesign, so as to not look bad. The 124 isn’t exactly a looker in the annals of automotive history.
Thanks for the above Saz, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ very interesting!