Mazda has kept its promise to implement a restoration program for the original MX5 for the domestic market. Work is said to have begun in December 2017 and now the first car, a 1992 MX5 in the classic "british racing green" color, has been handed over to its happy owner Keiji Nishimoto.
For the next 25 years
Nishimoto bought the car, which he liked because of its classic appearance, as a new car. In this country, these models were marketed with the advertisement "vely blitish", because even more than the standard model, the green special edition with Nardi steering wheel and brown leather interior was reminiscent of the English roadsters of the sixties.
After 25 years, Nishimoto's car required intensive reconditioning and instead of doing it himself, the owner left the car to Mazda, with the aim of returning it to virtually new condition with another 25 years ahead of it.
Complex process
Not all MX5s are restored by Mazda. The prerequisites for starting the project are a fundamentally good condition, a traceable history and a true-to-original condition. Thanks to over 150 new original parts and the work of many hard-working hands, Mazda's Engineering & Technology Group then turns the used car back into a car as good as new.
It's not cheap. Even if no guide prices are published, it can be assumed that it will cost over EUR/CHF 30,000 to restore an MX5 to its former glory.
For Japan only
The program is explicitly limited to the domestic market, so local MX5 owners are excluded. However, the likelihood that both the new parts and factory-restored MX5s will appear in Europe sooner or later is not small.
What is certainly interesting about the Mazda "Reborn" program is that with the MX5 they have taken on an originally affordable car from the recent past and not, for example, the 110S, but after all, the MX5 is still one of the most popular cars in the Mazda sales program today.
