Yahoo Autos 2022 Mazda MX-5 Miata Road Test | Old dog, new trick
Miata fans live by a simple mantra. Whether you’re behind the wheel of a spankin’ new 2022 Mazda MX-5 or the 1990 Rustpile Edition™ sitting in my garage, one truth unites us all: M.I.A.T.A. — Miata Is Always The Answer. Sure, it’s exclusionary tribalism with a welcoming smile behind it, but for a long time, it had the benefit of being true. As bargain-priced, rear-wheel-drive models evaporated from the market throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Miata became the enthusiast’s entry-level car of choice if they wanted rear-wheel drive.
Even the ho-hum alternatives we take for granted today were fewer and farther between back then. Remember, the DaimlerChrysler partnership didn’t spit out a Challenger with a decent V6 until 2011 and we went nearly an entire decade without a Camaro of any kind. The Honda S2000, Nissan 350Z and Mazda’s own RX-8 were only inexpensive by 2022 standards; back then, they eclipsed the 4.6-liter V8 Mustang GT’s MSRP — by a lot, in the case of the Honda. So, for a long time, your options were Miata, Mustang or making do with front-wheel drive.
It helps of course that the Miata has always been good. Very good in fact, despite following a formula that most modern car buyers eschew. Light, low and limber — three terms you’d never use to describe today’s crop of performance SUVs — were the name of the game then just as they are now. The ND MX-5 adheres to the formula even better than the intervening NB and NC models did, in fact, but for some reason, Mazda keeps tinkering with it.
Certainly nobody (apart from owners of 2016-2018 models, maybe) complained a few years ago when Mazda upped the 2.0-liter 4-cylinder’s power output from 155 hp to 181. The 2.0 may not be any more characterful or engaging with another 26 horses, but they’re certainly welcome. Ask any clear-headed Mazda fan how best to describe the manufacturer’s offerings and you’ll hear some variant of “outstanding chassis, acceptable engine.” That’s gone double since the Renesis rotary was discontinued (yeah, they’re as reliable as politicians, but equally entertaining right up until they fail).
But for 2022, Mazda looked not to the powertrain, but to the chassis for opportunities to improve. Finding none but wanting to do something anyway, Mazda’s engineers came up with new braking software that helps mitigate body motion in hard cornering, reducing roll and making steering response more linear. Mazda calls it “Kinematic Posture Control” (KPC) and it requires no additional hardware to implement — just what the doctor ordered.
While you’re busy doing the business of hustling a Miata around tight corners, KPC will digitally sneak in and drag the inside rear brake juuust a tad. Applying the brake in this fashion will help counter the natural upward movement of the body over it, flattening out the car's cornering attitude and giving the impression of a firmer suspension setup without the added cost, complexity and ride quality penalty of actually engineering it that way in the first place. If this is ringing a bell to you, it’s very similar to Nissan’s “Active Ride Control.” Mmm, yes. Nissan Altima tech in my RWD roadster. That’s exactly what I wanted.
“That’s good,” you say. “Miata Internet told me the ND handles like a yacht, unlike previous Miatas, which are basically race cars.” Hey, I remember my first Internet. And I remember when the exact same thing was said about the NC. But “4x4 ride height” and “leans like a container ship” are only valid measures of performance in magazine racing world, and let’s make something perfectly clear: body roll has been a product of Mazda’s aforementioned triumvirate of L-words since the very beginning. Yeah, your buddy’s ’94 R-Package corners like it’s on rails after $3,500 in parts from Flyin’ Miata. Bone-stock, that thing had its inside hip in the air going around every. single. cone.
Body motion is not inherently bad, it’s merely a tangible expression of a chassis’ weight management characteristics. When Mazda re-jiggered the seating position for the current Miata, the entire point was to put the driver closer to the car’s roll center so that its attitude (as in pitch and yaw, not how smiley the grille is) could be more easily interpreted. This change had the side effect of reducing the Miata’s perceived body roll, even though it did very little (not nothing, but we’re not going to dig into that here) to alter the amount of weight transfer taking place.
