Mazda Motorsports has just added a slick looking handmade hardtop option for the 2017 MX-5 Global Cup race car, but you can’t just pick up at a dealership for your regular-ass mere mortal Miata.
This roof is being offered exclusively for the Global Cup race car rendition of the car so it can be eligible for competition in a greater range of events.
“While our first year was spent concentrating on the successful launch of the MX-5 Cup car in our Battery Tender Global Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich Tires, we knew that was just one arena for customers. Now with an available hardtop, Mazda racers can compete in SCCA and NASA Club Racing and in the Pirelli World Challenge TCA class,” Mazda Motorsports business development manager David Cook said in a press release.
The Global Cup Miata is designed to be a value-priced race car, relatively speaking, and a good starting point for drivers with substantial but maybe not factory-team money to get into sports car racing. Mazda’s representatives say over 130 of these things have been sold around the world.
Normally they run topless, but the roof option will give the car more versatility and make racers who hate wind happy.
As to why Mazda won’t offer the roof for regular Miatas, company representative Jacob Brown explained to me that the fact that it’s designed around a roll cage would make it suboptimal for fitment on the road car.
Plus there’s the prohibitively high cost of $4,420, since it’s handmade to order and certified by race sanctioning bodies around the world.
While I think first-generation Miata looks pretty sweet with the factory hardtop that was optional in the early ‘90s (and did you know it fit the second-gen, too?) Brown went on to say that the take rate was low on the optional hard roof that was later sold alongside the third-generation Miata. And of course today we have the beautiful targa-style Miata RF, so there’s not much of a business case for Mazda to offer this thing for your road car.
Now you know why the Miata-driving public is being barred from that cool hardtop you’ve seen floating around the internet for the last 24 hours. And maybe it’s the excuse you were looking for to get into the Global MX-5 Cup series?