IIRC some months ago it was determined the 12R is Japanese market only 
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Yes, it is, in small numbers too. Just looking at it it isn’t ‘baby boomer’ enough for the UK. Saying that, even the 35AE didn’t make it, and that got boomer all over it.
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Yeh that’s right, it is limited and for Japan only, they have done the same in the past. That doesn’t mean we can’t look forward to it and rare models do get imported by enthusiasts.
There is also the non-fast non-limited version due to be made in higher numbers.
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Hopefully it’s not an EV or a hybrid!. Mazda must differentiate and not join the rat race. I think the price will be a deciding factor also as they aren’t cheap anymore and already pushing customers away.
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As I recall, the next iteration will be petrol with a 2.5l Skyactive Z engine. This is a more efficienct compression-ignition lean-burn petrol engine technology but produces less power, hence the capacity bump to compensate. Next MX-5 will also be lighter.
Reference Mazda Chief Technical Officer Ryuichi Umeshita. Mazda Will Put a Bigger Engine in the Next Miata
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agree with you!!!
The price has increased!
EV being pushed by the UK, the sale of new petrol and diesel cars will be banned from 2030, with all new cars and vans needing to be zero-emission by 2035
This was the post that got me asking the question 
Thanks 
Yes, we can ‘look forward to it’ all we like, looking at it in magazines 
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true
Since Ive picked up a MX-5 and I asked why is called a MX-5?
You probably know this
Turns out Mazda eXperimental number 5!!
How cool 
is that!
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Interesting…
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As far as I know, in the case of the GR86 was due to safety regulations and not due to emissions though.
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How Mazda should do it:Milk the ND MX-5 for what its worth. There is no real reason to replace it except for regulatory means. The 2030 ban is now suspended, and is now extended until 2035, in line with the exemption extended to 2035. What Mazda should do is delay the reintroduction of the MX-5 until the technology has caught up to fulfill the original premise of the MX-5. But they won’t. They are a public car maker, which means their first duty is to the shareholder. If there is a way to monetize the MX-5 name, they will. Ford was happy to relaunch the Capri as a sporty EV SUV, because frankly who cares about the views of a bunch of septogenerians. For people of my generation, and I’m long in tooth, the last time a new Capri was sold, it was a bit of an automotive running joke.
Mazda has already said the ND2 will last until 2030. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a ND3. This is rubber bumper MGB stuff.
Note, UK deadlines are now a complete irrelevance for manufacturer, except when it comes to model availability. The UK won’t have any influence on model development plans. Its perfectly possible that a regulatory change in some other, more important , car market such as the US, EU, Japan, will result in the MX-5 being withdrawn from the UK market.
And how important is the MX-5 to Mazda? Last year, they sold 1.3 million cars, up 5% in a year. That’s ahead of overall global trends, that saw new sales up 2.7%. For all cars, Europe is basically flatlining, @ cagr 0.8%. The growth is in APAC and North America.
Getting recent MX-5 sales is tricky. 2024 sales for the US were down 10% to less than 9000 cars. Between 1990 and 2020, North America accounted for about 50% of MX-5s. Even if the US has declined in importance, I’d say the annual sales are about 20,000 MX5s per year. Putting that in perspective, 1990 saw about 100,000 sales. Peak NB production was 1998, with around 60,000 cars sold. Peak NC sales were 2006 with 48,000 cars. Peak for the ND was 2016, with 40,000, despite all the hype. Sales since have declined such at 2024 doesn’t look any better than lockdown 2020. The ND is supposed to be the best ever MX-5, favourably compared with the NA. Only the market didn’t want another NA. ND development was basically underwritten by Fiat. Mazda doesn’t have any money for venity projects, like MG, who are quite obviously using the already rapidly aging lossleading Cyberster as a means to get more showroom footfall,
A lot has happened since. The Fiata was a flop. Fiat itself has all but disappeared, reduced to a few models, and highly regionalised as a brand. I don’t see a NG MX-5 being developed. I will be 67 in 2035, and I suspect zero interest in a MX-5,
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Wow, thanks for such a detailed reply, so much information within it! And very informative, so many factors leading upto “will they build a new MX-5”, I didn’t consider any of them, but now you have explained it in such a way I understand.
I dont know if Im old, or have great taste! Maybe we are all a dying breed of enthusiasts, such a profound question.
To be honest the more I learn, the more I admire the MX-5 and its history.
Thanks to this site, and very knowledgeable people like yourself.
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Yes, I think off the top of my head it safety via the actual shape of the car would have to be redisigned?
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There is, that’s the current iteration if you follow the route of previous generations.
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All very sensible. Like you’ve alluded to, there’s so many different parameters and iffs and maybes. Your outline logically catches the gist of it. Good post.
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Mazda refer to the current version as ND2. Enthusiasts may have their own categorisations.
Chief Engineer Saito said, “Since we have made so many new changes, we would like you to call it the ‘ND2’.”
We will talk about the evolution of the dynamics area in the second part, but even including that, it is certainly a major product improvement worthy of being called “ND2”. However, it has been nearly nine and a half years since the ND was first unveiled at Maihama, Tokyo in September 2014. How long will they continue to make the “ND2”, which was developed at considerable cost? “To be honest, we don’t want to start work on the next NE model yet,” says Chief Engineer Saito.
ie any changes in the model prior to February 2024, Mazda considered too trivial to warrant referring to the car as “ND2”. The 2018 version fans call ND2 is equivalent to how the fans called the NB the “M2” back in the day, or how we made up “NB-FL”, designations Mazda never recognised.
The current version, whether the official designation ND2, or the unofficial designations ND3, Mk4.75 etc is set to be around 5 more years according to Mazda’s engineer. Commercial realities can always affect this timing. ie it might not be around for 5 more years. There are actually two timelines to consider. There is the regulator’s timeline, which is maximalist. Then there is the commercial timeline, driven by the life span of models, tooling, factory refits, production retraining. The two might coincide. But they might not. Does a car maker invest in a new engine block foundary, or cylinder head machining tools, which might normally have an operational lifespan of say, 30 years, if they are going to have to shut it down in 5 or 10 years. With production staff, its not just a simple case of today you are making diesel econoboxes, tomorrow you are making electric cars.
You are seeing in real time Jaguar shut down this summer to completely refit an assembly plant that until recently was churning out Ingenium XEs. Jaguar poured over a billion pounds into building an Ingenium engine plant, which might well have cost them their future. Its an experiment that might fail, and the only way the Jaguar brand will survive is if the company fails, the brand is brought, and the cord is cut.
People critique Chinese MGs as not being “real” MGs; well neither were the last MG-Rovers. they weren’t built at Abingdon. They were just rebadged Rovers. Even the Rover was just a brand absorbed by British Leyland, which had ceased to exist as an independant entity following the BMC formation. Credit where credit is due; the Chinese owners have made full use of the MG heritage to rebuild what is now a very successful brand. I see it as a continuation. I regularly visit Thailand and India. The number of MGs, in their Asian trim, with little Union flags on the rear hatch, is astonishing. Its survived, and now they have the luxury of producing sports cars. When Mazda produced the first MX-5, it was flush with cash, and were soon making M2-Inc vanity project MX5s, until the Japanese recession brought them down to earth a bit.
Mazda might have the same issue after SkyActiv, where their future might be tied to the fickleness of politics (Ford has been pretty opposed in recently slips in timelines, as they think this is giving unfair commercial advantage to competitors who haven’t invested correctly). Mazda are a bit of a minnow in car terms, and things can change quickly. Look at Mitsubishi, and more recently, Nissan.
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This subject is so complex, just looked into Jaguar Ingenium engines and its purpose, plus into MG, and the cars they produced, all very interesting, it’s not stright forward as you are pointing out, political agenda/emissions, plus the major cars companies trying to find a foothold within the changing dynamic.
MG have done well, great to hear the have little union flags in them.
This question has turned into a octopus 
with many other questions connected to it.
A simple question has opened up the whole car industry!
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