MX-5 AT FIRST SIGHT

*MX-5 AT FIRST SIGHT*

 

NOTE: This is a story of the first experience I had with a Miata MX-5.

Let me start by introducing my personality; I nag like a middle-aged man and I used to hate cars. Yes, I know this is a car blog. Here’s the thing though, all my life cars were what took me to places. That’s that. You get up, get in, get driven to places, playfully enjoy people cursing at each other while driving, and reach your destination. But all this changed the first time I got into a Miata.

It was my boyfriend’s very first car. He was ecstatic. One day, I had just gotten back from a work trip and he came to pick me up with his newly owned MX-5. I still remember every little detail. I was waiting at the bus station for him. A life-sized hot wheel stopped in front of my surprised eyes. He recognized the surprise in my look and mistook it for admiration.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” I can recall him saying.

“Yeah, it is nice, honey, but it seems small and low”,

“Yes! It maximizes the driving experience come, you’ll love it”, he said.

Well getting in presented some very fundamental challenges for an old soul like mine. I attempted to take a sit. It took my bottom 15 seconds to reach the target. I put my seatbelt on and then took a look out of the window. I felt like that princess from Thumbelina. Everything had grown big; the bus, the station, the road.

“How cool does this feel?” my boyfriend said.

“Oh, it is a whole new world, my love” I replied trying to sound every bit like the supportive girlfriend I consider myself to be.

And off we go. It was a close ride from the station to our house and during the largest part, the ride was quiet. A little while before we reach home it occurred. I refer to it as the “incident”. Right before our house, there is a small park, with grass and trees and flowers. Children like to swing and play there. Sometimes they take small branches from the trees that fall to the ground and pretend to swordfight. I always found them fights to be amusing. The irony of it is that nobody knows what destiny has in store for them. And as we turn I see it. Death incarnate, laying bare on the road.

A BRANCH.

A HUGE BRANCH.

WE’D CRUSH RIGHT ON IT.

I turn to look at my boyfriend’s serene face one last time. He’s smiling and humming along to a song on the radio. I can imagine worse ways to go. This is what life had in store for me, a swift death by the branch in a real-life hot wheel. I’ll take it like a man. “I love you” I try to tell him, but he cuts me short as he says,

“Hey look at that, how irresponsible of them children to leave that branch in the middle of the road”.

He stops the car, gets out, moves the branch with one hand to the side of the road, and comes back in. It doesn’t look so big now that he holds it. I feel rather embarrassed about all my previous thoughts. He looks at me and smiles,

“You are awfully quiet my love, how do you like the car?” for the first time since I remember myself I had lost sense of my surroundings and felt like I could touch the road.

“Well, I’m sure Fred would love it,” I say

“Fred who?” he asked

“Fred Flintstone,” I say sweetly.

We reached home safely that night and went to bed early. I couldn’t shake the strange feeling of my stomach. Was this form of interaction the thing people called the driving experience? It was not entirely unpleasant. I was intrigued. And everyone who loves their MX-5’s knows that this, my friend, is how it always starts.

And it is true what they say. Being a car enthusiast is very much like being in love. The difference is that when a man falls in love, he makes his love interest his priority. He is very protective and likes to spoil his very special person. When a woman falls in love, you see, we begin by learning everything there is to learn about that person that intrigues us. In my case, I started by gathering all sorts of info regarding this strange hot wheel that gave me feelings of shorts. It turns out that MX-5 comes from a good, religious family; his great-great-great-grandfather was a three-wheeled truck and his last name (Mazda) is inspired by the Zoroastriniac god of light. His first name MX-5, well that’s a funny story, but it’s short for Mazda Experiment Number 5.

A family friend, named Bob Hall, had this crazy idea in 1976, during an interview with Kenichi Yamamoto and Gai Arai, about an inexpensive roadster. A few years after that, two teams, one in California and one in Tokyo designed a baby with both mom’s and dad’s best features. Long story short, in 1989 the Miata MX-5 was born. A small, light, technologically modern, dynamically balanced baby; the successor to 1950s and '60s Italian and British sports cars, prominently the Lotus Elan. It eventually came to be the oldest of four siblings, referred to by enthusiasts as NA, NB, NC & ND. Raised in Tokyo by Takao Kijima & Toshihiko Hirai the Miata MX-5 was a sportscar in which driving pleasure was thoroughly pursued and the embodiment of Mazda’s Jinba Ittai philosophy. Jinba Ittai can be loosely translated to “rider and horse as one”.

 

*OH MY GOD of course and what is the number one thing that happens to riders on horses? THEY GET HIT BY TREE BRANCHES*

 

The second stage of a girl falling in love is idealizing her love interest. So I began to not only like the way it looked but also understand why so many people love it. Seriously though, it’s like the Harry Styles of cars. The wide adoration gave the MX-5 a place in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2000 as the best-selling sports car of all time. The largest Mazda parade was achieved by Mazda MX-5 (Netherlands) at the RDW Test Centrum in Lelystad, on 15 June 2013, when 683 just casually went out for a stroll. And of course, the MX-5 is the only car model that has its very own Motorsport series, the Global MX-5 Cup.

 

And as for the third stage… well I haven’t reached there yet. But I promise to keep you posted.