It’s Mitsuoka’s stretched, £54k MX-5

What you are gawping at was, once upon a time, a perfectly ordinary Mazda MX-5. Right up until Mitsuoka - of gopping-looking Orochi fame - got its hands on it The result is, well, startling.

But this stretched, retro-styled MX-5 - now christened ‘Mitsuoka Roadster', thank you very much - is no one-off concept car built for a far-flung motor show.

This, TGers, is a production car you can buy for your very own. Complete with Mini Cooper-pinched headlights, a choice of soft-top of folding hard-top roof, and a price tag of.... ah, yes. £53,800.

Now, for a 158bhp roadster that uses the engine, running gear and platform of a not-very-fast, decade-old sports car, that might sound like quite a lot of wedge. And frankly, it is. The price is magnificently, eye-wateringly bonkers. So, how does Mitsuoka justify asking serious Porsche Cayman money on its latest questionable-looking branchild?

The incredbile Mitsuoka Orochi is dead

First off, you get all the kit from the plushest of outgoing MX-5s. The bigger 2.0-litre engine, heated leather seats, climate control is thrown in, and you have a choice of six-speed manual or automatic gearboxes.

It's also the world's fastest roadster - if you take ‘world's fastest' to mean simply how fast the roof can open (12 seconds) and not how quickly the Mitsuoka will accelerate (conspicuously not quoted in the company's official press bumf).

So it's from a company with barely a crumb of credibility outside of Japan, and it costs a heart-breaking amount of money. But are you really going to say you don't want to find out what a super-long wheelbase MX-5 is like to drive down a twisty British B-road? And what sort of reaction it provokes from other motorists, passers-by and indeed local wildlife?

Summer won't be complete until we've driven it.