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Aussie Mazda MX-5 Miata specs leak suggests power loss

Mazda's 2016 MX-5 Miata reveal didn't include much in the way of specifications, but the car's debut seems to have blown the lid off of the rumormill, with the latest word out of Australia including fresh claims of curb weight and engine output.
Before delving into the findings from Motoring.com, we're going to take a moment to find a few grains of salt. It's not that we don't trust the Oz publication, it's just that we wouldn't be surprised to learn their car's specifications will vary from that of our eventual North American car.
Of course, we don't expect the footprint of the new ND model to itself to differ much - it will still be the most compact Miata ever - overall length is expected to check in at just over 154 inches - that's about 1.4 inches shorter than the original NA Miata and over 4 inches shorter than today's NC generation, yet it'll ride atop a longer wheelbase and be slightly wider while sitting lower to the ground.

Mazda books first yearly profit in half-decade, NA still a drag

Automotive News reports Mazda has posted its first annual profit in five years. The company made $364.3 million in the last fiscal year, following a $1.14 billion loss the year prior. Operating profit also jumped up by $91.3 million to $572.8 million, thanks in part to a revenue increase of 8 percent to $23.42 billion.
But the news isn't all rays of sunshine. North America continues to be a problem for Mazda where the automaker posted yet another loss. The manufacturer lost $519.1 million last year, up from $427.8 million the year prior. While the launch of the CX-5 helped see US sales increase by 2 percent to 273,000 vehicles, the region as a whole bought up 372,000 units. Mazda had predicted closer to 380,000 units.
Even so, Mazda says it should have North America back in the black by next year, with the company forecasting a sales increase of 11 percent to 415,000 units in the region. That's thanks in part to a boost from the redesigned Mazda6 sedan.

2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Quick Spin | Elevate yourself

It's unusually hot in Western Washington; the early August sun beams through skies rendered hazy by fires a few hundred miles to the north. If you're not moving, it gets a bit oppressive, since there's just enough humidity to feel it and not enough wind to relieve it. Instead of huddling inside, window shades drawn, fan blowing hot air around impotently – this is how most Washingtonians, 75 percent of whom don't have A/C, handle the heat – we're taking our fan on the road. The best way to beat the heat, it turns out, is to climb into the forests. For this adventure in body temperature regulation, we've got a Mazda MX-5 RF, the Miata's semi-targa-topped variant, and a few hours of time. And the Cascade Mountain's foothills, thickly coated with Douglas firs and, higher up, subalpine firs soaking up as much sun as they can in the short growing season. I've lived near the foothills nearly all my life, but there's a lot of the Cascades I haven't explored. One area is Chinook Pass, a mountain road that crests at 5,430 feet. Looming almost 9,000 feet above it is Mount Rainier, so close you can almost touch it. Just about 100 feet below the summit is Tipsoo Lake, startlingly clear and sporting enough wildflowers to make The Sound of Music look like a movie about Rommel's North Africa campaign. But that's jumping ahead a bit. Between me and the summit is about 90 minutes of driving, through the suburbs and into the Enumclaw Plateau, and then along the chalky White River and up into the mountains. Plenty of time to focus on nothing but the surroundings, and the quality of the cooling action provided by the little Mazda. A quick word about the car, and my own biases – I love Miatas, but I have a complicated relationship with the latest MX-5, having owned a much more visceral (and much slower) first-gen car for about six years. On paper, it's this perfect modern interpretation of the original. It's light, it's a momentum machine, the steering's just a tad overboosted, and it has a playful amount of body roll while maintaining a healthy amount of mechanical grip. It looks aggressive enough, too, a major complaint of many folks about the last-gen car's Joker smile. The interior is largely brilliant, amazingly simple and interesting for such a lithe car. And yet, I have never found the new car to be as charismatic as my old Miata, with all its flaws. This puts me in the minority; most MX-5 fanatics find the ND to be a great compromise.