Mazda MX-5 review: facelifted MX-5 tested in UK

You can just imagine the furore in Mazda HQ when Nanjing announced it was to relaunch the MG TF late last year. "Finally, a genuine competitor for our MX-5! A 10-year-old Rover built by the Chinese! We must respond immediately and decisively. How about an almost imperceptible facelift?"

If the introduction of the lightly woeful TG500 has highlighted anything, it's that the MX-5 really has no genuine competitors in the market at the moment. Which makes it easy to scoff gently at the mid-life facelift as doing just enough to stay ahead of the game, but that'd be unfair. Why radically change something that's spot on already?

So, for 2009 the MX-5 gets a mildly revised front end with a slightly pointier grille, to bring it in line with the rest of the Nagare-d range. It looks good. Sharp.

The engines have been revised, too - though the power output of both the 1.8- and 2.0-litre units remain the same (124bhp and 158bhp respectively), consumption rises by a couple of mpgs, while emissions are down a few percent. Nothing big, but all good news.

For the first time, there's the option of a paddle-shifting automatic gearbox, but quite frankly you don't want it. Not when the six-speed manual is a thing of such absolute loveliness, short of throw and precise of travel.

And it's only the six-speed manual (when mated to the 2.0-litre engine) that benefits from the very best bit of the MX-5's facelift: the ISE. That's short for Induction Sound Enhancer, a through-bulkhead tube that, in Mazda's words, ‘gives the power unit an even more exciting sound'.

It might strike you as a bit gimmicky, but it makes a real difference. There's a smooth, zimmy engine note that, when you've got the roof down - which you should do, all the time - adds a really satisfying kick when you blip the downchanges or just stamp the MX-5 to the redline (which, incidentally, has risen by 500rpm to 7500rpm).

Out on the back roads, as you'd expect, the MX-5 is still a brilliantly satisfying thing to drive. The 2.0-litre ‘Sport' model, with tougher shock absorbers, a limited slip diff and lovely new bucket seats, is the best of the bunch: perfectly flat and neutral through the corners, but not so stiff that you'll be coughing up pieces of your lower spine the next day. The steering feels just a fraction sharper than before, while the traction control will happily let you get a bit heart-in-mouth before reigning things in.

Hardcore sceptics might moan that the revisions to the MX-5 don’t lift it from its hairdresser realms, and that Mazda should offer a properly lairy MPS version. But, in truth, the MX-5 doesn't need any more power. It's dead on, just as it is. Swallow your masculine pride and embrace your inner metrosexual. It'll thank you for it.

If not, there's always that lovely MG TF...