The Mazda MX-5 has been facelifted. Not very thoroughly, but it's an interesting facelift nonetheless.
What should you do if you want to present one of the best drivers cars in the world again?
You go to one of the best roads in the world. That's why I'm in Romania, on the Transfagarasan highway.
Made world famous by Top Gear, because they called it the best road in Europe.
So of course it's the place to find out what this MX-5 can do.
My apologies for my convertible hair, but you want to drive with the roof down on this road,
with weather like this and a car like this. It might look a little messy, this is why.
Before I mention the amazing road I'm driving on, let me talk about the car I'm driving.
You don't have to go very fast or drive it for a long time to make it fun.
You'll notice quickly that... I've said it a while back, but if you change lanes on the motorway,
you'll have the most fun doing it in an MX-5. The way the car reacts makes you feel like you're in complete control.
It's light, the balance is great, no understeer or oversteer, you'll just slide over four wheels.
But it's not like the oversteer is incredible or that you lose traction, it just drives around its own axle.
It's just like you want a sports car to drive, and that's when speed isn't incredibly important.
Performance or hundreds of horsepowers are really overrated, if you look at it like that.
So, Mazda has taken a look at the small complaints people had, and they fixed the problems they were able to fix easily.
A complaint about this RF was that the folding roof was too small, but the size hasn't changed.
People who are taller than 1,95 m. it's still a little cramped, but they've tweaked some other things in the interior.
They've added Apple CarPlay, they've improved the cup holders, and the doors are easier to open,
which is nice in parking garages. You wouldn't skip the car for it, but it's nice that they've been fixed.
The drivetrain is the most important change however. The engines had to be reviewed because of the WLTP-cycle,
something you see in other brands as well, but the 2.0-litre engine has changed a lot.
The 1.5-litre version has gained one horsepower, but that's not very relevant.
That was the nicer engine because it was lighter in the nose and because it liked to rev even more.
The 2.0-litre felt a little spongy, like all other SkyActiv-engines.
They run great, but they aren't revvy at all. That has changed however,
because it'll do 7.500 RPM now, where it didn't even reach 7.000 before.
It gained power as well, because it went from 106 horsepower to 184 horsepower, which means it's now significantly quicker.
Like I already said, you don't need hundreds of horsepower, but if you can get it going, that would be nice.
Especially if you've got an atmospheric engine, which has to build up power from lower revs.
It just packs more punch. Especially the way it revs now makes it fun to drive.
It's hunting revs, it can easily surpass 7.000 RPM... It sounds good, it feels good, the throttle response is good,
and the fun factor of the MX-5 has went from 9 to 9,5. Then there's this road...
What makes this Transfaragasan so much fun to drive on? It's shorter than I thought actually.
It's about one hundred kilometres long and it's a mountain road mostly. I'm driving back now as well,
because you can do that in a day. Back and forth in five hours.
The road is wide, the asphalt is good, it's a clear road,
you've got hairpins as well as smooth curving roads... It's very quiet as well, even though that could be different in weekends.
I didn't encounter a lot of traffic today though. You can just put your foot down, no caravans blocking the roads...
You can really drive your car here, and the combination of oversight and corners is what you want.
Sure, you can have nice corners, but if you can't see anything, you have to keep to yourself because of safety.
But I can see everything here. The weather is good, my roof is down...
Things don't get better than this, in a car of course...