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Any love for MX5’s?

MartinC said:
The 2.0 with a 0-60 of around 6 seconds really isn't slow, as long as you use the gears and the engine to its full potential, the later 'ND2' variant with ~182HP loves to rev and keeps pulling till the redline, I think most people who complain its too slow are used to higher capacity or turbo engines and shift up too early.
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No, it's not slow, but 0-60's a bit of an irrelevance. I mean, who indulges in the traffic light grand prix nowadays? A nice revvy engine with a smooth power delivery is fine for me.
 
Suffolk Tony said:
No, it's not slow, but 0-60's a bit of an irrelevance. I mean, who indulges in the traffic light grand prix nowadays? A nice revvy engine with a smooth power delivery is fine for me.
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Absolutely Tony! Try a ND too as I’m 5’11” and there is plenty enough room. The NC’s are regarded as the roomiest and they retain hydraulic steering albeit they are 75kg heavier. The hard top electric roof is very smart though and looks way nicer than the ND RF.

It’s easy to get swallowed up in the whole power and straight line performance thing. I’ve had five Lotus Elise’s from a bog standard 118bhp k series S1 to a 315 bhp supercharged Honda K20a. In hindsight, the most fun is to be had in a car that you can wring out on a nice flowing B road and you do not need oodles of power to do that.
 
Loved my Elise S1. I did struggle getting in & out of the blessed thing though! I believe they reduced the width of the sills on later cars.
 
gintonic said:
that is relative.

We spent some time with an MX5 years and years ago, and found it boring to be honest. In some strange way it was less interesting than the MGF we had.
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Fun isn't about speed. It's about the feel. I had a Fiesta years ago, it was at best a warm hatch. But it was fun. The engine had two power peaks that you felt when accelerating, at 3500 and 4500 rpm. It wasn't fast, but you felt that it wanted to go. Minis were never quick, but they were fun. Compare and contrast my current Audi diesel. 3x the power, 0-60 in under 6, but is it fun? Not really. It just goes.
 
JezmondTutu said:
All the MX5’s are prone to underbody corrosion including the latest one Tony.

You just need to find a good place that will strip off all the old anti corrosion coating down to bare metal, properly prepare it and then use the right coatings to finish it.

Or find a car that has been sorted.

The 2009 onwards cars have various improvements including the stronger engine with forged internals. They are very good for modding if you want to go that route. Check out BBR’s 200 kit.

NC is probably a sweet spot value wise as the earlier cars are now more expensive. You can also easily retrofit stuff like Apple Car play to them,
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Stripping off all the underbody coating seems rather excessive. What's the reasoning? I've had a great many old cars, the underbelly coating has never been a problem. You may need to add to it, but that's all. I had an MX5 mk 2, that went rotten after 20 years but from the inside out, in the usual fashion. Underbody coating had nothing to do with it, it was a cavity corrosion problem.
 
Mine was never boring (1.8 iS)

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