The 2016 Mazda Miata debuts tomorrow evening. Let the nearly real renders begin. This one just popped up on Miata.net, and has started a frenzy. Why? Because it appears that an employee of Mazda North America might have made the rendering. Interesting.
Yesterday, a forum member on Miata.net called "SethOfDeath" made his first and only post on the site: Two images that appear to show the full body of the 2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata.
The proportions look dead on with the spy shots we've seen, it also looks more compact than the current car and has all the right lines, especially the rear quarter view. That's just like the under-the-sheet pics we've seen. The tail pipes and door handles don't look real, but this has to be the closest we've seen yet. Forum commenters are divided on it right now (as they are about anything), but I like it. It's aggressive and angry, but 100 percent Miata.
Why are we putting some credence in this rendering (it is a rendering)? Well, if you look at the image, it has a small watermark that says "designed by Seth Elson." Mazda North America has an engineer named Seth Elson who lives in Orange County, according to LinkedIn. There's also a Twitter account for "SethOfDeath" which also says he is located in Orange County and has tweets that reference Mazda.
When contacted, Mazda said that this was "another nice rendering. You fanatics." Also, when asked about the link to Mazda North America, they said "so what? Employees like to sketch, too."
Indeed they do.
No matter what, we'll see the real thing tomorrow evening in Monterey.
Hat Tip to Eric!