The next-gen MX-5 Miata thread

[sumbrownkid]

Yes, but Mazda has way more recognition in the market compared to Fiat, especially in North America where FIAT just made its return. What better way to introduce a new sports car in cooperation with Mazda, whom the North American market knows first hand of their sports car lineage.

Mazda benefits because they themselves as a car company are not doing too hot in the sales and budgeting. They need something to help them out and FIAT came calling. FIAT benefits by introducing another model into the line up besides the 500.

Edit: Wow this post is the dumbest post I've ever written. How can I mistake Alfa for FIAT?

This is grounds for banning.

 

[Famine]

While I'm not trying to jump in on this argument, I do kind of see DeadStig's point here. Say Fiat/Alfa decides they want to build a sports car with the purpose of being better than the MX-5 (as ludicrous or expensive as that may be). Not only could that produce a great car in and of itself, but it spurs on Mazda to try even harder with the new MX-5, which, to be honest, they don't have much motivation to do at the moment other than reputation, because they are in, as you say, a niche market. As unrealistic as it may be, it would certainly go a long way in restoring the brand credibility in the eyes of enthusiasts if they went for that goal by themselves and achieved it, or even got really close.

But you can't just throw hundreds of millions of dollars at bespoke parts and tooling for the factories on a niche sports car. Alfa don't even make anything RWD at the moment - the last was the 8C and that was just a Ferrari F430 in a new frock - so they'd need a completely new and separate production line.

Mazda's sold, what, a million MX-5s in the last quarter of a century? 40,000 units shifted a year. What's the second best-selling convertible ever? The BMW Z3 sold well - 300,000 sold at about 50,000 a year. The Honda S2000 which moved 120,000 in a decade - 12,000 units a year. Let's be optimistic and say that the new, bespoke Alfa Spider sells better than the S2000 did, moving 15,000 units a year at $25,000 apiece. It'd need to sell at 100% profit - no material costs, salaries, factory overheads, shipping costs - for three years to offset the $1bn cost of bringing an entirely new car to market. The reality is that there's probably a 15-20% margin once the above costs have been taken into account, so it'd need to be the third best-selling convertible in history for 13 straight years to offset that cost.

And of course it wouldn't be. Some folk would buy it because it's an Alfa Spider - but a whole load of folk wouldn't because it's an Alfa. Let's be fair, at the same price point, would you buy a RWD roadster from an accomplished RWD roadster manufacturer in its 25th year of making the best-selling and world-renowned handler, reliable RWD roadster or a car maker with a slightly patchy reliability record making a RWD roadster for the first time in 25 years having built nothing but FWD and 4WD cars since 1992?


With the Alfazda, you're buying the car from the first one, regardless of the badge. You're buying the experience from which experience you prefer - the Alfa engine, body and trim or the focussed Mazda - a luxury roadster that can do B-roads like stink or one that's not as nice to be in, but it'll get there a bit quicker and cost a bit less. Alfa get a discount on development costs, Mazda get a discount on development costs. The only decision now is which engine/body/trim combo you prefer and which price is acceptable - folk who'd never consider an Alfa are now considering an Alfa...

 

[niky]

The mere fact that Mazda is considering this points to how little sense a small rear-wheel drive sportscar makes financially.

This development could possibly help them keep the price down to compete with the Toyota 86, which has a good chance of damping MX-5 sales pretty badly in the coming years, even after the model change.

 

[Tornado]

Alfa don't even make anything RWD at the moment - the last was the 8C and that was just a Ferrari F430 in a new frock

Not saying you're wrong, but how the hell did they pull that off?

 

[xNEVER-ONEx]

Not saying you're wrong, but how the hell did they pull that off?

I thought it shared a platform with the 599 and Gran Turismo.

 

[Leonidae@MFT]

And in addition to the Spyder, Alfa is also bringing in the 4C, a mid-engined layout that they have no experience whatsoever.

 

[psntomaz]

Alfa is coming out with 3 Specialty Cars. 4c, Spyder, and a Possible 6c (ala Barracuda for the chrysler side)

 

[Famine]

Not saying you're wrong, but how the hell did they pull that off?

Because FIAT*.

The engine in the 8C was a Ferrari built Maserati engine too - poor old Maserati gets passed around the FIAT group like an [obscene image] at a [party of some kind], being owned by FIAT in the 90s, Ferrari in the 00s and Alfa Romeo right now (in fact since 2005).

The development of the 4C has been split a little. Although it's an all-new, bespoke, MR sports car, the powertrain has also been developed for the 2014 Giulia. There's a fair chance it'll ride the 8C's wave - with the 8C being sold as a limited edition in the USA as the first Alfa in... a decade, interest should be there for a smaller version on a non-limited run. Though Alfa only have the capacity to make 2,500 of them a year at... you guessed it... their Maserati plant


It's good that some money is being thrown at Alfa right now, but any good car company has to know when it's necessary and when it isn't. The 8C was an epic platform share and was little more than sheet metal changes - as a very pretty limited edition car it drummed up interest in the company in a country it's been absent from for a while even though it was not much cop as a performance car. The 4C will take advantage of that as a non-limited, baby version - while splitting dev costs with the Giulia sedan, but it's unsuitable as a basis for low-cost convertible because it's a carbonfibre tub. The "Spider" would have required a second all-new line - maybe able to share powertrain components with low end Giulias or Giuliettas - so it's just flat out more sensible to throw a bit of money at someone else to make it for you. Plus they get to say "Look! It's an Alfa Romeo Mazda MX-5 - our version of the best-handling car ever made and reliable too!"


*Incidentally, this is an abbreviation - for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino (Italian carmakers of Turin)

 

[Leonidae@MFT]

Couldn't Maserati make use of the 4C's MR platform in form of reborn Merak?

 

[homeforsummer]

And in addition to the Spyder, Alfa is also bringing in the 4C, a mid-engined layout that they have no experience whatsoever.

Quite - that must be quite expensive on its own, particularly since it's going to use a carbon tub.

That said, I think it's actually marginally cheaper to develop a transverse mid-engined car than it is a longitudinal front-rear car. Mainly because you can get away with using a very similar engine/gearbox layout that you use in a typical front-drive car. (Edit: Mildly tree'd by Famine on this - it's using plenty of bits from the Giulietta, it seems).

That's how MG was able to build the MGF so comparatively cheaply. In that instance, I seem to recall it used a whole Metro subframe turned the opposite way around and put in the back!

 

[analog]

Couldn't Maserati make use of the 4C's MR platform in form of reborn Merak?

I doubt Maserati will ever make a mid-engined sportscar again since it's deliberately positioned differently than Ferrari, more of a luxury/GT brand with a possible SUV looming on the horizon (and the Merak/Bora were the only mid-engined cars Maserati ever build anyway)

However, the 4C platform would in my opinion be perfect for a Dino-badge.

 

[niky]

Sadly. The last mid-engined Maser, the Enzo-based MC12, was absolutely gorgeous... I think a line of Maserati-built Ferrari clones would be wonderful, but we can't have the Fishmen outdoing the Horses, now, can we?

 

[Famine]

That's how MG was able to build the MGF so comparatively cheaply. In that instance, I seem to recall it used a whole Metro subframe turned the opposite way around and put in the back!

That is exactly the case.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

Not saying you're wrong, but how the hell did they pull that off?

I was actually curious about that too; to my knowledge, the 8C's platform was related to the one underpinning the previous generation of Maser's coupes (the 4200-era cars), and being a steel chassis, can't really be related to anything in the Ferrari stable since the 456. Actually, since that was mostly a carryover from the 3200, which I think pre-dates the 360, I'm not sure what ties the Maser platform has, if any, within the Fiat empire.

As for the MX-5/Spider tie-up; I'm excited about it, as it's a win/win in my books. I imagine the Alfa will be the faster model, but undoubtedly heavier, probably turbocharged. There was a lot of talk a while back about the next MX-5 going back to its routes from Mazda, and a pure, light, nat-asp version from them would be aces.

 

[Famine]

It's probably that then. I recall reading something about there being something significantly 430 in there, but then I suppose the engine's in the wrong place for the tub to make any sense. Plus I think it's difficult to make a 430 handle that badly.

I actually want an Alfazda MX-Spider since I first heard about it. Either of them. Or both.

 

[Goshin2568]

Yeah. I thought the 8C ran a modified GranTurismo chassis.

Also, if it's so suicidal to build a brand new platform to sell into a niche market, how on earth are Toyota and Subaru making money with the BRZ/FRS? Was that not a brand new platform?

 

[Tornado]

Also, if it's so suicidal to build a brand new platform to sell into a niche market, how on earth are Toyota and Subaru making money with the BRZ/FRS?

They stole the book GM was using when they made the Uplander, hopefully finding the chapter about Economies of Sale that GM always fell asleep before getting to.

 

[YSSMAN]

Also, if it's so suicidal to build a brand new platform to sell into a niche market, how on earth are Toyota and Subaru making money with the BRZ/FRS? Was that not a brand new platform?

Co-develop a chassis. Build a ton of them. Charge a little bit more than the public originally wanted to pay. Use as many other off-the-shelf bits and pieces that you can in order to save elsewhere. Make money.

Toyota has an advantage over a lot of the others; Money, and a lot of it. They can afford to dump some cash into a project and hope that it works. As it stands with most of the other major manufacturers, they have to rely on existing platforms and other designs to carry over into a new product. Not that it is wrong, exactly, but it doesn't always work out as well as how they'd like it.

The GM Kappa platform is a good place to see where it can go wrong. The Solstice and Sky (among others) were quickly brought together due to overwhelming positive reactions to the concept cars. The chassis was basically a variation of the Y-body, otherwise what was underneath the Corvette. Then you take the engine, transmission, and switchgear from the Cobalt... Lights from the Envoy... The rear axle from the CTS... Etc, etc, etc. Even when it was built to cost, and shipped all over the world, GM still lost money on them. And even when the Kappa platform was one of the most-promising new things to come out of old GM in quite some time, they killed it rather quickly, and no one noticed.

The biggest difference with newer platforms for companies is that they've made these things infinitely flexible in size and shape while still being the same basic design. That's what Mazda and Alfa are doing here, that's what GM will do with the Alpha chassis, Ford with the D2C successor, and so on...

 

[homeforsummer]

Toyota has an advantage over a lot of the others; Money, and a lot of it.

This. They could, if they wanted, almost sell the 86 as a loss-leader, simply using it as a halo product to make people more aware that they can be interesting when they need to be.

I suspect this isn't the case though - both Subaru and Toyota will be making money on it, if not now then after a few more years of healthy sales.

The other point to note about the 86 is that some of its technology can be potentially used in future models - think the next Supra, if and when that arrives.

 

[Famine]

Indeed - the car was always priced as a £20k sports coupe and when it hit the market it was suddenly £25k.

Of course small coupes are less niche than small convertibles - a hard roof and a pair of joke rear seats makes them instantly a more practical choice - and where the Z3 set annual sales records at 50k a year and the MX-5 set outright sales records at 40k a year, these were records for convertibles. The triplets have already beaten those numbers worldwide in 2012, despite only being on sale for 7 months - they could turn a profit with just 18 months of sales, though it's more likely to take 2 years after the initial sales boom...

And they're playing on heritage. And they shared platform development costs. And nobody had to put their own engines or bodies on it.

 

[RocZX]

New info on the MX-5 and Spider

The co-developed new Mazda MX-5 and Alfa Romeo Spider will each be sold with its own, bespoke engines, with even a diesel unit being a possibility for the MX-5.

Mazda intends to fit its version of the upcoming MX-5, due next year, with a new naturally aspirated SkyActiv engine as the staple unit. It is likely to be 1.6 litres in capacity, with an output of around 130bhp.

The Spider will probably use Alfa’s turbocharged 1.4-litre ‘TB’ engine. More powerful MultiAir or 1750 TBi units, the latter as found in the 4C sports car, may also be offered. Power could range from 120bhp for entry-level Spiders to 296bhp for top-end cars.

Mazda is insistent that the MX-5 will remain naturally aspirated, but turbocharged versions of previous-generation MX-5s have been produced. Alternatively, to provide more power without resorting to forced induction, a larger SkyActiv engine could be fitted.

A diesel option is being considered, but the lightweight and high-revving capabilities of a petrol engine are more desirable to Mazda. There are also concerns over the market viability of a small diesel roadster, which might prove difficult to sell.

It’s likely that a six-speed manual gearbox will be available for both cars, while an advanced paddle-shift six-speed auto could be offered.

Mazda hopes the new car will be the same size as the original MX-5. Modern materials and design techniques will help to reduce weight, while meeting modern crash regulations. This will help to achieve Mazda’s ambitiously low target weight of 800kg.

Autocar

 

[Beeblebrox237]

800 kg! This car just gets better and better! A diesel seems to go against the sporting pretentions, but offering it europe could boost sales.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Honestly it'll be a straight miracle if they get the weight that low. I think a more realistic expectation is for it to weigh about the same as an early NA model.

I just wish we could see the damn thing. Spy shots or something, they are keeping this thing under extremely tight wraps...

 

[Dennisch]

Why do I think that "modern" materials equals a pretty costly MX5 or Spider?

But if I am wrong, then this probably will be one of the best sportscar ever build. 800kg. 120hp minimum. Sign me up. 👍

 

[Leonidae@MFT]

Diesel? In a cabriolet? Just how drunk are they?

 

[Dennisch]

That has been going on for quite some time now?

Your question needs to be :

A diesel in a small sportscar? How drunk are they?

 

[Leonidae@MFT]

Indeed. If it is going to be as light as they say, why would they need a torque-biased turbodiesel? Only reason I can think of is emissions and MPG.

 

[ExigeEvan]

Indeed. If it is going to be as light as they say, why would they need a torque-biased turbodiesel? Only reason I can think of is emissions and MPG.

Which is exactly what would sell amongst the British market, IMO.

But, that said, and £30 tax p.a engine would attract the same market.

 

[homeforsummer]

Indeed. If it is going to be as light as they say, why would they need a torque-biased turbodiesel? Only reason I can think of is emissions and MPG.

You make it sound like nobody would buy such a thing...

It's not my cup of tea personally, but you can't be too shocked that those emissions and mpg categories aren't hugely instrumental in how people but cars these days.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

800kg? BRING BACK THE 12A FOR THIS CAR MAZDA!! I can't think of a more perfect engine for a 800kg roadster. Use renesis tech, and do whatever needs to be done to make it less thirsty and less polluting. I don't care if it ends up at only 120hp like the skyactiv!