► Month five with the plucky Mazda MX-5
► The inherent joy of convertible sports cars
► Pothole Britain strikes again
What is it about open-top sports cars? Do we have some kind of inherited memory of blasting across the plains on horseback with nothing above our heads except the stars? Even the most disinterested passengers start to make cooing noises as soon as you lower the roof of the MX-5.
Case in point: Harry and Will – my better half’s nephews. Aged six and four, respectively, they think I’m all right because I’m good with Lego, but have never shown the slightest curiosity about the cars I bring when we visit, including the previous Lamborghini. Yet the moment I show up with the roadster, they’re suddenly queuing for a ride round the block; honestly, we could have carried on all day. It was uncanny.
That all is not lost for the future of motoring enthusiasm is this month’s good news. For the bad news consider the slogan, ‘I’m not drunk, I’m just dodging pot holes’. As comedy bumper stickers go, it’s a pretty lame one – for it’s not until you really have reason to notice the dreadful state of so many of our roads that you really understand the sentiment. In my case, that reason really came when I ran over what I can only assume was a modest anti-tank trench on the A414 on the way back from Heathrow one dark evening.
The noise was incredible. Especially since said trench was on a roundabout, which I’d just pulled onto from a standstill. Sure enough, a couple of miles later the tyre-pressure warning light came on. I was able to cram enough air back in at a petrol station to get me home, but the next morning the offside rear was as flat as a proverbial pancake.
Fearing the worst, I booked it into the Cambridge dealer. Getting hold of the correct Yokohama Advan Sport took three days – while it’s a relatively new car, that’s going to be pretty inconvenient if the MX-5’s your only transport – but the technicians reported no other damage, and the £102 bill was a pleasant surprise. Less pleasant was the reappearance of the tyre-pressure warning light later the same day; this is either down to a slow puncture on one of the fronts or because the dealership had inflated the new rear to 32psi, some 3psi more than Mazda specifies. The monitoring continues, and FYI, I’m teetotal.
From the driving seat
+ Sweet engine and gearbox combo
+ ‘Baby iDrive’ infotainment a joy
– Unsettled ride increasingly annoying
+ Three-second roof action
Logbook: Mazda MX-5 1.5 Sport Nav
Price: £22,445
As tested: £23,105
Miles this month: 774
Total miles: 6868
Our mpg: 38.2
Official mpg: 47.1
Fuel this month: £95.36
Extra costs: £102.08 (rear tyre)
Read more from the May 2016 issue of CAR magazine