Review: the insane £54,000 Mitsuoka Roadster

Looks like My First Morgan to me…

Welcome, friends, to the magnificence of the Mitsuoka Roadster. Essentially, what we’ve actually got here is a last-gen Mazda MX-5 wearing baroque fancy dress. For this, you pay a fee equivalent to three brand new, mk4 Mazda MX-5s. Or a proper Morgan, and a lot of other very serious premium sporting machines. Adopt the brace position: it’s £53,800. Uh-huh. Fifty-three.

If you recognise the name ‘Mitsuoka’, you’re most likely familiar with the V6-powered Orochi sports car from a few years back, which was potentially the ugliest, craziest looking car ever conceived for the public road.

Anyway, Japan’s zaniest carmaker is back, and it’s brought the UK something far more tasteful. A new sports car, just in time for summer.

It looks very, very long.

It is. From chrome bumper to chrome bumper, it measures 4,575mm. That’s longer than the current king of long-schnozzed sports cars, the Mercedes-AMG GT. It’s not far off outstretching a BMW 3-Series. Cartoonish is the word. It’s a caricature, a Hanna-Barbera sketch gone rogue.

What Mitsuoka does is take that mk3 MX-5, chop off the chassis ahead of the A-pillars, then insert a chunk more chassis. A whole 70cm more. Jaguar XK120-aping glassfibre panels are then cloaked over the top, along with the headlights from a Mini and running boards that Cruella de Vil would adore.

And inside?

You thread yourself into the MX-5-sourced cabin (only with a Mitsuoka badge tacked onto the steering wheel boss) and survey the view ahead. Gulp: the nose is three postcodes away, and rear visibility is of the letterbox variety.

But those bulbous wings are ideal for placing where the front tyres are hitting the road. So, you twist the rebranded Mazda key (there’s no starter button like the new MX-5 here), rouse the gruff little four-pot and concentrate on watching the fibreglass bonnet wobbling and vibrating instead.

Go on then, what on Earth is this like to drive?

The short answer is ‘like an old NC-generation MX-5’, but there’s more to it than that, because although it’s inherited the same extremely light, feel-free steering, the wheelbase is so much longer, so it wants to flow into corners, not dart toward an apex.

Which is fine, because it’s softly sprung and does like to roll around on its squishy shocks. Roof up or down, it’s not that stiff either, so it’s not as if the chassis would cope with stiffer, more precise damping. Even in the wet, the lack of grip across the front axle and relatively meager power means it won’t muck around. Playful it isn’t.

Oh come on, handling’s hardly the point here is it?

No, it’s not, but you did ask. I’m sure Mitsuoka itself would admit that if you wanted to spend upwards of fifty (fifty!) thousand pounds on a roofless sports car, the Roadster is not targeting those seeking the last word in definitive road-holding. Actually, maybe they would. I mean, who knows what they’re thinking…

Back to the car, then…

Good, because on the powertrain front, things are better. Less so because of the noisy, not particularly spritely performance of the 158bhp, 2.0-litre engine, but rather because of the manual gearbox.

It’s an MX-5 ‘box, so it’s a little cracker. Short throw, medium weight, and gorgeously precise as each gear slots home. It’s easily the most enjoyable thing about driving the Mitsuoka. Besides the incredulous, astounded looks it leaves in its wake, obviously…

Does anyone really take you seriously when you’re piloting one of these things?

People smile. More than that, in fact. They openly giggle, but not in a malicious, derogatory way. Passers-by and other drivers look upon you, grin quizzically and you know they’ve had their day made.

I pootled it around for a couple of days in central London and rural, Berkshire countryside. London can be a cynical place, devoid of a sense of humour when presented with a flash car, but the general reaction to the Mitsuoka was bewildered delight. The elderly of the parish smiled at it warmly, seemingly being reminded of a bygone time when the must-have car accessory was a hand-crank start, not LED running lights.

And because no-one knows exactly what it is, and therefore how much it’s worth, it does command a certain amount of respect on the road, as your fellow motorist keeps a wide birth in case Toad of Toad Hall’s motor is worth more than their house.  

If I’m still struggling to ‘get’ the Mitsuoka…

…then it’s not for you. And I don’t doubt that means 99.5 per cent of you reading this right now are agog at the styling, the price, the mechanical underpinnings, and would rather set fire to a pile of notes a thousand high then rock around in this Far Eastern Morgan-wannabe.

But Mitsuoka’s products have never been for the everyman, and on some level you’ve got to applaud the imagination, the sheer bloody-minded will to be different.

Or maybe you don’t. Honestly, I wouldn’t buy one, not as my second car, not as my hundredth. But the Mitsuoka made a lot of people crack a smile, including me. What price do you put on that?

Pictures: Simon Thompson