Hagerty | Revelations with Jason Cammisa. The Mazda MX-5 Miata Had No Chance of Success.

This is the unlikely success story of the Mazda MX-5 Miata: the world’s bestselling 2-seat roadster and the only remaining true lightweight sports car. It almost never happened in the first place. Had its makers listened to the experts, it never would have happened. And if Mazda listened to its own customers, it would have never succeeded. The Mazda Miata has succeeded where every other lightweight sports car has failed, by decidedly NOT giving the customer what they want. No more weight, complexity, speed, or luxury. On this episode of Hagerty’s Revelations with Jason Cammisa, we welcome special guest and father of the Miata, Tom Matano, to tell the story of how the Miata has survived economic downturns and done the impossible. In the process, it’s proven every other carmaker wrong — cars can indeed be light, simple, and fun, even while meeting modern emissions and safety regulations. But it all almost never happened — battles between Mazda’s North American office, which conceived the Lotus Elan-like roadster, almost resulted in a front-wheel drive or mid-engined car, and led the original team with Matano and Bob Hall, to ask for the project to be killed off. Forget the whole thing. Just kill it. Thankfully, Mazda didn’t. And 35 years later, the Miata reigns King of Sports Cars, selling the same amount of cars in the US every year as Porsche sells 911s — despite the 911’s incredibly broad product offering.