Today I was invited by my local Mazda dealership to attend a preview of the new MX-5. The car was only available for a few hours before it moved on to its next showroom appointment. Mazda UK are currently touring selected UK dealerships with 9 pre-production cars. The car I viewed today was a 2.0 Sport model complete with the optional Safety Pack and Sport Tan leather interior. It was good to see this £200 optional leather interior in person as I didn't get the chance at Goodwood.
Two Mazda reps were on hand to answer questions about the new model and demonstrate the features. Of course I did ask about test drives but was told unfortunately there were legal and insurance issues due to the car not quite being technically the full production model. There were a few test drives available at Goodwood, but they were on a private road.
It was good to have the opportunity to view and sit in the car again with less of a crowd this time. The combination of Soul Red with the tan leather and silver interior trim looked really impressive under the showroom lighting. I did notice that even though this is a brand new car, the light coloured leather seats were already showing signs of dirt and possible colour transfer from clothes. I think if I were to choose this colour seat I'd want some kind of cover to keep them looking their best. Then again this was supposedly a pre-production model so perhaps the final leather is more resistant.
As well as the tan interior option, this car was also fitted with the extra safety pack which includes the additional High Beam Control (HBC), Blind Spot Monitoring (BSM), and Rear Cross Traffic Alert systems. This car also comes as standard with rear parking sensors and the Lane Departure Warning System (LDWS). You may be wondering how the car knows it is in a lane and within the white road markings. Well there is quite a large camera unit attached to the windscreen which looks a bit awkward to say the least. I can only hope this is a prototype unit and the final design is integrated in a nicer way. This unit is standard equipment on higher spec model, so not every car will have it fitted.
Although I wasn't able to drive the car today, I've been invited to a full test drive in August over in Yorkshire at one of the special events Mazda has organised. Of course there will be a post about that, should be fun! Those who came to see the car today were given some information on pricing and an MX-5 branded 4GB memory card containing a lot of promotional pictures and videos of the car.
