Is the MX-5 RF a good looking car? PH Blog
Dan + MX-5 should be a match made in heaven... but what about the RF?
Ummm, ahhh... it's a tricky one!
But I still can't call whether the RF is a good looking car or not. I've walked around it many times in the last couple of days. Squinted at it from every angle and viewpoint. Even followed one of my fellow journos along a country lane for a good few miles to get a sense of how it looks under way - the best way in my book to actually judge whether a car's design 'works'.
One second I'll look at it and think 'yeah!', the buttresses giving the rear quarter a muscularity missing in the more delicate looking roadster and the coupe shape really bringing something new to the MX-5 line-up. Then I'll see it from another and the 5mm increase in roof height mentioned in the presentation looks more like 5cm, there seems way too much metal between the wheelarches and the top of the body and it looks like a car that needs stretching out to really work aesthetically.
This isn't going away for a while...
I'd like to see an RF with a little drop in ride height - standard MX-5s always seem to be up on stilts and this mod alone gives the roadster a real sense of purpose, likewise a nice set of wheels. Until someone like BBR makes a modded version of the RF the head scratching will have to continue though.
What do you reckon?
Dan
 |
 |
 |
 |
In RF form, it's awkward. That's not to say familiarity won't allow you to love it eventually...but I doubt it will be a common sight, in he way we've ha to adjust to jarring Bangle motifs...
The soft top works so much better...and that adjusted example above reinforces it. Although I'll add again, if the design only works because of wheel design or colour, it doesn't work at all.
Nearly all convertibles look awkward roof up, folding solid jobs especially, there are exceptions, but for me the RF, whilst intriguing, is not one of them.
The normal mx5 is a good looking car in the flesh - it's got that lovely old "handworked metal draped over a chassis" look to it, which is rather lovely. It's not attractive in its detail (or shape for that matter), but it's small, and the delicacy of it all makes it work.
This RF thing just looks like a shed. f
king awful. Buttresses?!? It's like going back to the time of the "original" Japanese sports cars, where they were all just interpretations of European cars. It just isn't genuine. Yes a 2 inch drop helps, yes they're quite colour specific. But no amount of optimism will make me want to trade mine in for anything newer.
I suspect the new MX5s look best of all when you're sat in them.
Part of me likes the idea of a slightly more refined all-rounder (although really, how much better than the rag top is it with the roof up?) but at the same time I wonder if it's missing the point of the MX5 a bit. If I were in a position to be buying one I feel like the purist's choice is the standard car with the revvy 1.5 and an LSD (not sure if that's actually an option).
Choice is good.
I do reserve final comments till I see one in the flesh.
I liked the mx5 on pictures, saw one on the road and love it. It looks better in the flesh, so there's a possibility this does as well.
But personally I think it's the best looking car in about 5 years, since they stopped making the Alfa Romeo Brera/Spider and the Renault Wind. The idea to make a Pontiac Solstice-style retracting fastback was a brilliant one and if into wasn't for my huge problem with buying new cars (why would you when they drop value like a broken plate), I'd buy one myself.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff