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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.

Mazda MX-5 Miata Cup racecar priced at $53,000

The 2016 Global MX-5 Cup is one of very few internationally competitive racing series that the average person can imagine (or afford) getting into. The ready-to-race Miatas are available to order now for $53,000 and deliveries are set to begin later this year. The first one is actually already on track as a pace car at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. With competition planned in North America, Europe, and Asia, all of the cup cars are identically prepared to emphasize drivers' skill rather than their bank account. The full list of Cup components hasn't been announced yet, but the roll cage and stripped interior are obvious. The 2.0-liter SkyActiv four-cylinder is still under the hood, too. The Global MX-5 Cup will also offer competitors big rewards, including a $200,000 scholarship for the season champion to move another rung up the motorsports ladder. In addition, Mazda will bring together the top racers from across the world to Laguna Seca to crown a series world title holder in a finale event. That winner will get a test In Mazda's prototype from the IMSA Weathertech SportsCar Championship. For now, Mazda is giving first priority to buyers planning to compete in its series. In the future, buyers of MX-5 Cup cars have other competition options, being eligible for some classes in Sports Car Club of America and National Auto Sport Association racing. Related Video: Mazda Announces Global MX-5 Cup Race Car Pricing - Initial Orders Being Accepted for the $53,000 Ready-to-Race 2016 MX-5 Miata - Oct 1, 2015 IRVINE, Calif., Oct. 1, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- The Mazda MX-5 Miata is the most road-raced production car in the world. The reason is simple - great performance at an affordable price. The new Global Mazda MX-5 Cup race car follows that formula, and will be Mazda Motorsports' first-ever ready-to-race MX-5 Miata. The new race car will be available at the special introductory price of $53,000. The race car ordering process begins on www.MazdaMotorsports.com with first deliveries scheduled to begin later this year. 2016 Global Mazda MX-5 Cup Race Cars Having a turnkey, ready-to-race car removes the effort of engineering and costs of fabrication, enabling the racer to focus on racing. All racers can purchase identically-built race cars so that driving talent will be the number one determining factor for on-track performance, rather than budget, engineering capability or fabrication skills.

Mazda CEO closes door on talk of RX sports car revival

Some rumors in the auto industry simply refuse to die. Over the last decade, a few of the strongest have focused on Japan. A few years ago, we could have explained away the constant whispering over a new Toyota Supra, Acura NSX or Mazda RX-7 as nostalgia for Japan's golden era of performance. Today, though is different.
We already have the Nissan GT-R, and, thanks to the Toyota FT-1 Concept, a Supra successor finally appears to be on the way. Acura will someday, allegedly, deliver on its promise to put the NSX on sale. So where does that leave the third member of the Japanese performance trio mentioned above? Well, um, it still isn't happening.
"We don't have that kind of vehicle in our future product plan," Mazda CEO Masamichi Kogai told Automotive News when asked about a successor to the rotary-powered RX line. "If you increase the number of segments, then the resources we can allocate to each will decline and that will prevent us from developing truly good products."