Mazda’s MX-5 GT RS review: could it possibly be better than the old, joyous MX-5?

Mazda’s MX-5 is one of my favourite cars ever. So how would I fare throwing this new and improved version around a track?

Heaps of fun: the Mazda MX-5 GT RS. Pictures: Cameron Murray

It pains me to write this, because I can’t even think about the experience of hurling the new version of one of my favourite cars ever, the Mazda MX-5, around a track without feeling a tsunami of nausea, flecked with a froth of shame. I use the word “hurling” advisedly, because I actually did make myself physically ill. If that makes you think less of me, I don’t blame you, because I think less of me, too, and was so embarrassed at my lack of intestinal and inner-ear fortitude that I didn’t let on to anyone at the event (at a hill climb circuit called Haunted Hills, a track designed to make you feel like you’re driving a roller coaster) just how bilious I felt.

I don’t blame the car – this MX-5 is somehow even sharper and more physically involving to drive than ever before – but I do blame the racing driver who sat next to me and, to a lesser extent, my own stupid male pride.

On the track

At the start of the day I was allowed to go out on a skidpan and throw the new car around some cones, sideways and often around in circles, with the traction control off, to show how easy it is to playfully drift this rear-wheel-drive toy of a car. The resulting smells of burning rubber and frying clutch didn’t rouse my stomach at all, because they smelled like victory.

My overly encouraging instructor and I then headed out to the circuit, which is about as wide as your hand and rises and falls like a scale model of the Himalayas. We went for a spin first in the old, outgoing model of the minimalist Mazda; as I wrestled it around bends, pushing my so-called skills to the limit, my relaxed racer friend pointed out that I was breathing like I was actually pushing the MX-5 up the hills myself.

Mazda is so convinced that it has improved on this joyous old MX-5 that I was then sent out again in the latest version, which features a chassis system called Kinetic Posture Control (KPC), to provide “a greater sense of oneness” between driver and car. Considering the old one has always felt like a second skin, with its tiny 2.31m-long wheelbase making it feel connected to you at feet, buttocks and shoulders, it was hard to imagine how they would better it.

KPC applies brake pressure to the inner rear wheel during hard cornering to suppress body roll, while constantly measuring the difference in wheel speeds at the rear axle, so it basically knows how hard you are cornering and reacts instantly to minimise misbehaviour.

On such a busy, intestinally shaped circuit, it was instantly noticeable how much harder you could push the MX-5 into bends, how much sharper its turn-in felt and how much further away the edge of adhesion seemed to be.

Cornering at speed is even better than before

Truly, the merging of human and machine that the MX-5 manages is matched only by far more expensive cars with Porsche badges on them; and at a starting price of $37,790 (although the version reviewed here, the manual-only GT RS at $51,500, is the one you really want), it is a truly great sports car you can actually afford.

Powered by a 2.0-litre engine, good for just 135kW and 205Nm, the free-revving new Mazda felt more than fast enough – singing all the way to its 7500rpm redline in second and third gears – to make me very aware of what I’d had for breakfast, and why eating it had been a bad idea.

My instructor insisted that I switch between the two cars, then try the automatic version (which simply should not exist – the MX-5 was born to be a manual car in the same way that Roger Federer was born to play tennis), then go out again on my own.

From the back

I couldn’t say no, or tell him I was feeling sick, because I am a man, and so between each session I would go and hide in the toilets, have a little cry, and go out again. I knew that I would normally be loving every minute of this and asking for extra laps, instead of slowing right down and puffing like I was giving birth as soon as I was out of the instructor’s sight.

The day finished with a drive on public roads, which I would have enjoyed immensely had I not been stopping every few minutes to get out of the car and closely examine my shoes. I will spare you the grim details of what happened just moments after I waved farewell and headed off for my solo drive back to Melbourne, but let’s just say that I’m extremely relieved that none of my colleagues, nor the people at Mazda, will ever know how I shamed myself.

Mazda MX-5 GT RS

ENGINE: 2.0-litre four cylinder (135kW/205Nm). Average fuel 7.2 litres per 100km

TRANSMISSION: Six-speed manual, rear-wheel drive

PRICE: $51,500

STARS: 4.2 out of 5