The car that changed the world (a little)
08/12/2019
After February 11, 1989, the world was no longer the same, at least not the car world.
Mazda had presented the Miata, known in this country as the MX-5, at the Chicago Auto Show, setting new trends. For comparatively little money, you could suddenly buy a pretty two-seater sports car with an individual and, above all, open body. The convertible was almost considered extinct. Only the Alfa Spider, Mercedes SL and a few others of the old guard were still at the start, while new convertibles were at most still being built on the basis of existing saloons. Mazda started a veritable convertible boom with the MX-5, which many manufacturers subsequently followed.
In 1989, however, it was initially mainly the Americans who benefited from the small Nippon roadster. Small numbers had been planned, but these were practically snatched out of the hands of the baffled sellers in the USA. We would also have liked to have snapped it up; Auto Motor und Sport promptly hoisted the little sports car onto the front page.
For the time being, however, only specially imported examples (with mileage tachometer) came to Europe. I saw the first one in the summer of 1989 and I knew I wanted one too.
You had to wait until spring 1990 in this country before you could even order an MX-5 . There were no discounts, the cars were allocated. Nevertheless, I managed to get hold of one of these Mazdas and started driving it in the summer of 1990. Not in my preferred color blue, but in red. Still, what a joy when it finally arrived!
Incidentally, two other interesting Japanese sports cars had also celebrated their (pre-) premiere in Chicago in February 1989, namely the Honda NSX and the Nissan 300 ZX.
However, the impact of the NSX and 300 ZX on automotive history was significantly less than that of the Mazda MX-5, which was designed in the USA.
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