Loading…
Worlds & Stories
Road icons, racing heritage and the details that make a miniature unmistakable.
Mazda MX-5 Miata (NA)
Headlights up. There it is: a tiny sports car looking ridiculously pleased with itself. The first-generation NA Miata can get quite far on that face alone. I wanted to get past the pop-ups for a minute. Turns out Mazda had been fussing over everything from the layout underneath to the noise reaching your ears.
Read the deep dive
Mazda RX-7
Before the widebody kits and enormous wings, Mazda had engineers pinning weight-saving ideas to a board. That is the bit of the FD RX-7 story I keep coming back to. A sports car famous for its unusual engine also depended on lots of people finding small things to remove.
Read the deep dive
Mazda MX-5 Miata (ND)
Meet the fourth-generation ND Miata, the car behind these ’15 Hot Wheels models. Two seats, modest power, not much luggage space. Somehow it still generates enough discussion to require a much larger vehicle. I can see why. It looks like a very simple idea, right up until you start finding all the work that went into keeping it that way.
Read the deep dive
Mazda 787B
Three hours left at Le Mans. The leading Mercedes is in trouble, and Mazda’s number 55 moves into first place. The orange-and-green car has a four-rotor engine and a very long afternoon still to finish. I went looking beneath that bodywork and found a story about fuel, moving air intakes and trying to make every combustion count.
Read the deep dive