And I don't plan on it either, for reasons I've already described many times. I don't care how it handles or how much effort they put into keeping it light, it's a hairdresser's car.
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The Miata is one car, from one manufacturer, and no matter how good it is, it's still a hairdresser's car.
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*snip* (stuff about the 3.1 Sunbird) *snip*
I keep waiting (hoping, in fact, for your sake) for a sign that you're trolling us. But I don't think that day is ever going to come. You really believe all this 🤬 you say. Incredible.
Several things:
1. I can't take anybody who claims to be a gearhead even remotely seriously if they write off the MX-5/Miata the way you do. It is, without any shadow of a doubt, one of the most important and influential enthusiast cars ever built. That shouldn't even need to be said, and it definitely doesn't need to be expounded upon.
2. GM 60-degree V6s are junk. Absolute junk. And unlike you, I'm actually speaking from personal experience here when bashing something. I owned both a Chevy Lumina with the 3.1 L, and a 4th-generation Camaro with the 3.4 L. I'll give them kudos for being dependable, low-maintenance, and very easy to work on. That's where the praise ends. They're slow-revving, thrashy-sounding, and in the words of my old man, they couldn't pull the handkerchief out of your pocket. From a performance standpoint, there are absolutely horrible engines.
3. More generally addressing your closed-mindedness about cars: You really need to expand your horizons. My car through much of my late teens and early 20s was a 4th-generation Camaro Z28. 5.7L V8, 6-speed manual. Great fun, that car. Sounded fantastic, gobs of torque, great summer cruiser with the T-Tops off. Most importantly, it was a decently affordable way for a kid to drive an enjoyable car. So I get your love for big engines and RWD, I really do. But there are many other ways a car can be fun to drive as well, and as a self-professed "gearhead," you owe it to yourself to give them a try.
Just from my experience:
-The steering in Mazda's sports cars is absolute nirvana. I've only experienced this behind the wheel of an RX-8, but I'm sure the RX-7 and Miata also share this trait. I could wax poetically about it all day, but that's pointless. You just have to drive one. The feedback, the responsiveness, the feeling of connectedness with the road and the car is just pure bilss.
-The all-around balance of the Toyoscibaru GTFR-Z cars is a beautiful thing. Would I like to see a version come along with a little more power? Yes, 225-ish BHP would be about perfect for that chassis IMO. But focusing on that is missing the point of those cars. Again, you just need to drive one.
-For pure fun-to-drive, it's hard to beat a Mini Cooper. I'm sure that your knee-jerk hatred of FWD and supposedly "girly" cars keeps this car way off your radar, and that's a mistake. This car, for me, was a great example of the saying "It's better to drive a slow car quickly, than a fast car slowly." In a Mini, you can easily find opportunities to push the car to it's limits, and I'm not the least bit ashamed to say that a day behind the wheel of a Mini was probably the most thrilling I've had in any car. Every corner and on-ramp, even without breaking the speed limit, was suddenly the Parabolica at Monza, or Dunlop at Suzuka. Every Mini-sized hole in traffic to dart into turned me into Mansell jinking past Piquet at Silverstone. What a fantastic little car.
tl;dr - Anybody who seriously extols the virtues of a 3.1 Sunbird, but hates on the Miata, has some seriously misguided criteria for what is and isn't a good car.