If you think the Mazda Miata is literally the perfect car, there’s good news: its perfection might reach new heights next week at the New York Auto Show, as Mazda is expected to debut a hard-top version.
Miata! It’s the word you blurt out uncontrollably when a suburban dad says he needs a vehicle to transport his family of seven. It’s the car you spit out when your friend tells you he wants a four-wheel drive rock-crushing SUV. It’s the name you repeatedly scream at the top of your lungs in an uncontrollable rage when someone says they want something fuel efficient, and that they’ve been looking at Priuses.
It’s the car whose Craigslist ads fill up every tab on your work computer. You need one. Everyone needs one.
And while the current ND Miata is excellent, if you were to take an indenter and measure the Rockwell hardness of its top, you’d get very low readings. And some people don’t roll out of bed for anything with a top hardness of less than HRB55.
This according to Autocar, whom Mazda sent an invite stating that the company will be launching a new model, and that they wanted the media to help them “blow the lid off at the New York Auto Show.”
I mean, based on that hint, it’s hard to think of a debut that makes sense other than a hardtop Miata, unless Mazda is debuting something with an exhaust flapper (that’s sort of like a lid, right?) or a pickup truck with a bed cap.
The new hardtop Miata will supposedly get a lighter and smaller electric roof-folding mechanism than the outgoing model, and be slightly heavier and a couple grand more expensive than the soft top.
More expensive and heavier? That could seem like a step in the wrong direction for most, but if you’re daily-driving one in harsh northern winters, this might be a godsend. And also, you’re my hero.