Welcome to a Great British b-road and the inside, well you’re outside, of a new Mazda
MX-5 with a BBR turbocharged kit, if you like this sort of thing please don’t forget to
like and subscribe so that you will never miss another one. Now there are three main elements
to BBR’s upgrades to the MX-5, first is a set of high performance springs which lowers
and stiffens the car slightly at £500, next is a set of brake calliper upgrades to four
piston callipers at the front at £800 but most significant is what happens to the 130bhp
1.5-litre engine at the front. Okay now I’m going to resist the temptation to do any woolarding
but I will come over a bit 1980s Top Gear and show you the engine, it’s quite attractive
isn’t it? And this is the main event. It’s sat well back in the chassis, you can see
it’s in a nice twin-cam engine, it’s got that sort of retro look to it but the significant
thing underneath the carbon fibre cover is the large turbocharger to the right hand side.
It’s really compactly put in, it’s really nicely done and it makes 210bhp and 197lb ft of torque.
So the question is what do those changes mean to the MX-5? Well initially it feels
like an MX-5 because the seats no lower, I’m still sitting on it rather than in it, I could
do with a wheel that reaches out more, I could do with a seat that sits lower. The cabin
is quite compact but really nicely finished and it doesn’t take too long tootling down the
road on a bumpy little road like this to realise that the springs have had quite a nice effect.
The ride is still a little bit on the bouncy side but there is none of the sort of tippy
toedness and the real quick fall into a corner with a really rapid roll rate that is the mark
of the standard MX-5, this feels much more planted, much more settled but there’s no
particular loss I don’t think in ride comfort and all that's good about the MX-5’s dynamics
remains. It’s got quite rapid steering and the car turns very quickly despite the slight
increase in weight at the front, it doesn’t feel to me any less agile, it could be because
the wheels and tyres are uprated, it’s now on Michelin Pilot Sport Cups but only of 215/45r17,
that’s the same dimensions as on a GT86 so although it’s quite sticky rubber,
it’s not big rubber and it’s not really low profile rubber. Other standard MX-5 highlights
remain, this roof, I won’t do it now because you won’t hear what I’m saying, the roof
just drops in about 5 seconds flat, the gearbox, a six speed manual, is just really sweet of
shift, the pedals are nicely weighted and spaced, it’s just a real joy to change
gear in this car, that’s the kind of thing it does it brings interaction to you, it gets
you involved in the process of driving in the way old fashioned sports cars like this
tend to do and then of course there is the big difference, the thing which you actually go
to BBR for which is the turbocharger, so foot down 2000rpm, 3rd gear, still nowhere near
the legal speed limit yet but with now 210bhp, 197lb ft there’s now much more eagerness,
much more response, really nice broad power delivery, you can still rev this engine to
over 7000, you can still get up it but you just don’t need to quite as much and it
brings more than the naturally aspirated 2-litres oomph to what is a really pleasingly balanced
chassis while retaining all of the nice bits about the smaller engine and that it’s that
bit smoother, that bit zingier, that bit happier to rev than the 2-litre which can at times
be a bit grough. Now this is where things are a bit curious in the UK, the 1.5 turbo unit
won’t sell very many in the UK because we have the option of the 2 litre and a BBR
turbo on top of that but there are markets where cars are taxed on their engine size,
perhaps you live in one, where you don’t get that option, you have the 1.5 or nothing
in which case this is great, this really transforms a 1.5. The step change over the 2-litre naturally
aspirated is worth having but the step change over the 1.5 naturally aspirated is mega,
brings a really, really lovely crisp balance to this car when you’re cornering, it’s
got overtaking urge at last. So what, if anything, is wrong with it? Well really not very much,
if you are sitting at just around 2000rpm, 2200 or something like that, which actually
in 6th gear equates to around 50mph so it’s slower than most cruising speeds, you just
get a tiny bit of hesitance, just a tiny bit like you’re occasionally running into a
blustery wind, to the throttle response but beyond that point, and you’re very rarely
at that point in the rev range, it’s fine, it’s smooth, it’s responsive, it’s not
overly boosty but it is boosty enough just to give you some overtaking shove and you
don’t have to fit it to a new mark 4 MX-5 either, you can fit it to a used one. Now
I don’t know what prices are like where you live but in the UK they’re about £18,000
starting price, maybe a bit less, which means that by the time you put all this kit on you can have a sort
of £25,000 car that does not weigh very much at all, has a really nice strong broad powerband,
likes to rev, has a smooth powerband, has uprated brakes, has uprated springs and dampers
and just feels like a compact sports car in the really pleasing traditional sense, I like
that, I like it quite a lot. Would I have one over a GT86? I don’t know, maybe not,
maybe I’d go for the Toyota but the thing about this is of course, you can sling the
roof down in 5 seconds flat so if that floats your boat, have one of these but either way
know that the BBR kit on the MX-5 makes for a better car and is a proper beast of engineering.