Well after much thought I finally decided to say goodbye to my much loved NA after 15 years ownership. The only thing to replace it with was an ND, but which one? I fancied a Sport Recaro but none were available unless driving a lot of miles. I finally decided on a 2.0 ND1, which was not that easy to find believe it or not! I’d looked at several local cars & rejected all of them. Clearly not loved, sketchy history & not good underneath. That’s the thing with all MX5’s it not what you can see but what you can’t!
I had to travel over a hundred miles to find the right car & I knew as soon as I saw it it was going back home with me. Reflex Blue which is what I wanted, full history mostly Mazda, 2 owners, 26,000 miles. Clearly, someone had loved this car & looking underneath looks as though it hasn’t seen a Winter.
The drive back was comfortable & enjoyable but motorways are not the MX5’s strong suit so today I took it on some of my favourite local roads & wow, absolutely lovely, a thing of joy! It’s quick enough for me & the comparisons to the MK1 are evident, but so much nicer in almost every way. Perhaps only the steering feel is not quite as sharp.
Thank God Mazda are still making these amazing little cars!
Well done ! Get CarPlay if not standard and I think you won’t look back. Awful steering can be mildly improved by lowering suspension and getting a good geo done
My wife and I just bought a 2.0 ND Sport Nav+ in the same colour and passed on my 1.8 NC to a neighbour. Not had chance to try many twisties just yet, but still got the MX-5 smile per mile. Hope you are enjoying it as much as I am ours.
I suppose it’s natural to aspire to the latest but I can’t get past the reports that the ND is not as stable and the steering hasn’t the feel of its predecessor.
Love the latest look but it would cost me 10k to transit from my very low mileage NC1. A turbo conversion would still be half the price with a wonderful power delivery. …
I know what you mean, it took me over 12 months to finally let my NA go. Don’t believe everything you read on the internet, go try one for yourself. You may or may not like it. I’ve owned far quicker cars but the ND MX5 feels just such a well balanced all round package it’s hard not to like!
As others have said, great cars. Tyres make a difference to the steering feel and tbh I dont think my mk1s offered all that much better feel than the ND does.
My best mk1 had a blink motorsports geo set up and slightly wider wheels and the steering felt good on that…. I suspect similar results if I made the same mods to the ND
