Mazda MX-5 - long-term review

The MX-5 is great fun, no question, but we need to address the elephant in the room – practicality. It’s fair to say most people buying an MX-5 will not care about these trifling matters, but such things will still matter to some. I have mentioned before that this is not a totally suitable car for the weekly shop – especially if you need large bulky items – it turns out it’s also not a totally suitable car for a trip where you need any more than a toiletries bag and a change of clothes.

I had originally planned to take the MX-5 on a long and splendid trip down through France for a ten-day self-catering stay in a gite just to the north of Toulouse – it was going to be glorious. I had visions of sunny, roof down motoring on smooth and super quiet French N-roads, a few stops for coffee in pretty villages... I felt I was ready to embrace my inner Francophile and get full use out of my CritAir sticker.

But.

Have you seen the size of the baby Mazda’s boot? I mean, I know France can be hot and we likely won’t need that many clothing changes, but after I’d packed bed linen, pool and bath towels (for two) and hiking boots and sandals and trainers (for two) there was barely enough room for a small squishy bag each. More to the point, there was definitely not enough room for my monster size tub of crunchy peanut butter – a disaster. The square peg of necessary paraphernalia simply would not fit into the round hole of the MX-5 boot. BG24 FCC failed the holiday test and was given a reprieve – it was staying at home while the family Volvo got to go to France!

On my return from holiday, it seemed only fair to take the MX-5 out for an early morning weekend drive to prove there were no bad feelings. Yes, it had failed the holiday test, but there’s more to a car’s remit than holidays. With no one else to spoil the fun, I had a great time threading the Mazda along windy country lanes and across undulating countryside.

Spontaneous (or planned) trips like this are what small sports cars are all about – those fleeting moments when you can enjoy the car and the road and not need to worry about anything but the here and now. (Well, except for the potholes or the missing edges of road. But putting aside the terrible, pothole strewn state of the roads, the joy of the peaceful dawn drive when most people are still tucked up in bed is second to none.)

I managed a full hour of driving before I even caught sight of another vehicle, and that was a motorcyclist also intent on enjoying the blissfully empty roads that would shortly become a considerably more stressful and vexing place to be.