Mazda will officially announced the newly redesigned MX-5 Miata next week, on September 3rd. Although there is still one week before the reveal, some more information leaked out today.
The major news is that, the new MX-5’s design will take into consideration that a hardtop coupe will be made, during the lifespan of this generation of MX-5.
As you can see our in-depth review of the MX-5 Miata family’s design, the construction of the car frame has special treatment to address that typical problem in a convertible: lack of torsional rigidity in the car body. If the hardtop coupe model will be made for the new MX-5, and it does not share the same frame structure as the convertible model (which means it will be a typical unibody construction like all other sedan/coupe in the market), it will make the longitudinal beam that directly connects the front and rear sub frame be meaningless; this is because a normal coupe unibody alone is more than enough to provide strong torsional rigidity.
Therefore there are two possibilities:
1. The coupe model will be simply based on the convertible version, and the top (which is completely fixed and non-removable) is not a load-bearing structure;
2. The coupe model has its unique unibody design, and the longitudinal beam in the convertible model will be removed to save more weight.
Below are two spy shots of the 2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata.
Recent Comments