You saw the new MX-5. Mazda (which is preparing to resume imports in Greece in early 2016), despite the huge pressure from its fans to present a version of the most popular roadster on the planet with more power than we're used to, is not... dumbing down.
In fact, Mazda is sticking to the "low power, high fun" approach to the car, without even thinking about a Mazdaspeed, MPS (I'm saying now) version. Mazda's program manager for the MX-5, Nobuhiro Yamamoto, says that the top-of-the-line roadster will wear a 2-liter engine rated at 158 horsepower, minus the 1.5-liter, 129-horsepower engine we now knew it would "wear".
Either way, Mazda feels, as Yamamoto said, that a more powerful version of the MX-5 would lose its original character, which is focused on its low weight, low power, low price and fun-to-drive with absolute friendliness. He says that a more powerful and faster version of the MX-5 would necessarily have to be more expensive in price and probably "wear" a turbo, which would alter its character.
However, we know well that Nagasaki has long ago tried this "recipe" of a fast MX-5, experimentally "wearing" (in the previous generation) the engine that was worn by the Mazda 3 and 6 MPS and, in another case, a rotor. In both cases, the Mazda people told us, "the result was disappointing, as the car lost its fun-to-drive character".
If you really want an MX-5 and you don't have enough horses, there are tuners. They have to live somehow...
