Miata Automobile

Miata Auto of the Year: Mazda Motor Corp.'s Miata--the popular roadster that was designed at Mazda's design facility in Irvine--has been named Automobile of the Year by Automobile Magazine. The 400,000-circulation monthly magazine also named Bob Hall, manager of product planning and research at the Mazda design center, its first-ever Man of the Year.' Hall, a former automotive journalist, conceived of the Miata and pushed for its acceptance at Mazda.

MAZDA Miata, how do I love thee? Let me count the days. Um, two. On Saturday and Sunday, the Mazda MX-5 Miata roadster is utterly infatuating, a rorty, capering sprite, the nimblest of thimbletons, a bumblebee among stumblebums.

It is almost a rule that any new car that succeeds because it is priced low and looks attractive will be modified over a very short period into a costlier, much different vehicle. So fans of Mazda's Miata might be concerned about the Japanese auto maker's plans for the sprightly two-seat convertible. Well, Mazda executives are adamant that the basic design of the car won't change anytime soon.

Mazda Miata roadster fans who held out for 2001 models to get this year's more powerful 155-horsepower engine got less than they paid for, Irvine-based Mazda North American Operations admitted Thursday. Thirteen horses were lost in tuning the car for U.S. emissions standards, reducing output to 142 horsepower. Mazda caught the goof after a major car magazine ran its own acceleration tests and found the car's zero-to-60 acceleration times about half a second slower.

While stylists and engineers at Chrysler, General Motors and Ford were working up concept cars in their corporate design studios, executives at Mazda Motor Corp. listened to an Irvine research center employee and in 1984 gave the go-ahead to produce a lightweight sports car. The success of that project--development of the Miata two-seat convertible--has given Japan's No.

Furniture store owner Ron Behrens of Spencer, Iowa, figures that he can make a quick $10,000 profit by selling his new Mazda Miata sports convertible--in Los Angeles. "I figure the market for the car might be better out there with all the people and the sunny climate," Behrens, 41, said Thursday in a telephone interview. "By October, it's time to put the car away for the winter out here." He is asking $25,000 for his 2-week-old Miata roadster in a Times classified ad.

Mazda Miata roadster fans who held out for 2001 models to get this year's more powerful 155-horsepower engine got less than they paid for, Irvine-based Mazda North American Operations admitted Thursday. Thirteen horses were lost in tuning the car for U.S. emissions standards, reducing output to 142 horsepower. Mazda caught the goof after a major car magazine ran its own acceleration tests and found the car's zero-to-60 acceleration times about half a second slower.

When shooting recently ended on the movie "Always," director Steven Spielberg presented identical Mazda Miata sports cars to his four stars. There are those who believe the cars came with higher celebrity status than their recipients--Richard ("Jaws") Dreyfuss, John ("Roseanne") Goodman, Holly ("Broadcast News") Hunter and Brad Johnson. They certainly will still be selling furiously when "Always" is relegated to videotape and a $19.95 manager's special.

Organizers of the Orange County Performing Arts Center Triathlon announced Wednesday that they have increased the prize money to $25,000 for the May 31 race at Lake Mission Viejo. Better news for Brad Kearns, the two-time champion from Auburn, Calif., is that the men's and women's winners will each receive a Mazda Miata. He picked up a photo of the car and attached it to his name tag and said, "I'd like something in blue or red."

Customers are getting into near fistfights. The asking price of some used Mazda Miatas has soared to almost three times the sticker price of a new one. And some of Mazda's own dealers have a sneaking suspicion that the car maker set out to make the hot little sports car a rare item. These are the sort of problems any car company wouldn't mind having. "We're very happy about the demand," said George McCabe, deputy general manager of Mazda Motor of America in Irvine. "It's really a dream."

The streets of Irvine are likely to be thronged with two-seat roadsters this Father's Day as Mazda hosts a gathering of Miata owners at Mazda Research and Development, North America. The Irvine design facility--housed in a bland concrete industrial building at Red Hill and Reynolds avenues--is the birthplace of the Miata, which reintroduced the open roadster to the United States in July, 1989.

Organizers of the Orange County Performing Arts Center Triathlon announced Wednesday that they have increased the prize money to $25,000 for the May 31 race at Lake Mission Viejo. Better news for Brad Kearns, the two-time champion from Auburn, Calif., is that the men's and women's winners will each receive a Mazda Miata. He picked up a photo of the car and attached it to his name tag and said, "I'd like something in blue or red."

Masami Ishihara, the man in charge of building what is arguably the hottest car in the Western world, is about to beat a headache that has been bugging him for months. The kind of headache that his counterparts in Detroit would dearly love to have. For here in Hiroshima, Ishihara is the boss of Assembly Line No.

When shooting recently ended on the movie "Always," director Steven Spielberg presented identical Mazda Miata sports cars to his four stars. There are those who believe the cars came with higher celebrity status than their recipients--Richard ("Jaws") Dreyfuss, John ("Roseanne") Goodman, Holly ("Broadcast News") Hunter and Brad Johnson. They certainly will still be selling furiously when "Always" is relegated to videotape and a $19.95 manager's special.

Miata Auto of the Year: Mazda Motor Corp.'s Miata--the popular roadster that was designed at Mazda's design facility in Irvine--has been named Automobile of the Year by Automobile Magazine. The 400,000-circulation monthly magazine also named Bob Hall, manager of product planning and research at the Mazda design center, its first-ever Man of the Year.' Hall, a former automotive journalist, conceived of the Miata and pushed for its acceptance at Mazda.

It was the start of another beautiful day in Southern California. With the sun up and the top down, Mark Jordan headed north for Monterey one morning last August in a snub-nosed, cherry-red Miata. Jordan knew the car intimately. For six years, he had worked as a key member of a team of Mazda workers who designed the two-seater convertible, a sports car that only two months into production was already being heralded as a design classic.

The streets of Irvine are likely to be thronged with two-seat roadsters this Father's Day as Mazda hosts a gathering of Miata owners at Mazda Research and Development, North America. The Irvine design facility--housed in a bland concrete industrial building at Red Hill and Reynolds avenues--is the birthplace of the Miata, which reintroduced the open roadster to the United States in July, 1989.

MAZDA Miata, how do I love thee? Let me count the days. Um, two. On Saturday and Sunday, the Mazda MX-5 Miata roadster is utterly infatuating, a rorty, capering sprite, the nimblest of thimbletons, a bumblebee among stumblebums.

It is almost a rule that any new car that succeeds because it is priced low and looks attractive will be modified over a very short period into a costlier, much different vehicle. So fans of Mazda's Miata might be concerned about the Japanese auto maker's plans for the sprightly two-seat convertible. Well, Mazda executives are adamant that the basic design of the car won't change anytime soon.

While stylists and engineers at Chrysler, General Motors and Ford were working up concept cars in their corporate design studios, executives at Mazda Motor Corp. listened to an Irvine research center employee and in 1984 gave the go-ahead to produce a lightweight sports car. The success of that project--development of the Miata two-seat convertible--has given Japan's No.