Mazda MX-5 Review, Specs, Release Date: Debuts at 2015 Goodwood Festival of Speed (Video)

Jun 26, 2015 07:22 PM EDT

Mazda is the honored brand at this year's 2015 Goodwood Festival of Speed and is expected to give a first view in public on British shores to the all-new MX-5 and CX-3 on Goodwood's iconic 1.16-mile Hill climb.

The All-New Mazda MX-5. The newest generation of the world's best-selling, multi-awarded two-seater sports car. Embracing the breakthrough SKYACTIV Technology, it zooms ahead to raise the level of Jinba Ittai spirit in every drive. The ultimate driving pleasure connects the driver to the MX-5, the way the rider becomes one with his horse.

No detail has been spared to make the all-new MX-5 lighter, more nimble, and absolutely great drive. The Mazda MX-5 weighs less than 2,400 pounds. The KODO design gives a splash of sophistication to this stunning roadster and sleek convertible.

MX-5 is Mazda's Perfect Roadster?

It takes corporate balls of steel to stick by an idea utterly disarming in its simplicity, year after year, decade after decade. To pour your whole company philosophy behind it, to build a design language around it, and to aim for the record books. In 1989, at a time when everyone else was building faster, more powerful, more engineered, more expensive sports cars, Mazda had the courage to bring back the affordable open-top sports car, with perfect 50:50 weight distribution. Good job too, because to date it is the world's best-selling roadster. Sometimes, you need to listen to the little voice inside your head.

In 2000 the MX-5 was recognised as the world's top-selling open-top two-seater sports car by the Guinness World Records, with 565,779 cars sold.

Skip forward to this month's Festival of Speed, where the new MX-5 will be on display alongside the original Chicago concept for the roadster, and Mazda is still simply updating the Guinness World Record title, which no other manufacturer has come close to challenging.

The recipe for success for the MX-5 model remains a brilliantly smart one: affordable fun through clever, dependable, simple technology.

The Mazda MX-5 is powered by a 129hp 1.5-liter Skyactiv-G unit base engine. A 2.0-liter variant of the roadster is capable producing 158hp. However, the 1.5-liter and the 2.0-liter both come with a six-speed manual gearbox. Car Scoops said a Sport specification is offered for the 2.0 liter model, which includes sportier Bilstein dampers, a limited slip differential, a front strut bar, 17-inch alloys and body colored mirrors.

As with its predecessors, the new Mazda MX-5 remains a rear-wheel-drive, said Top Speed. Shinari Concept was the inspiration for the exterior design of the compact sports roadster first introduced in 2010. Engineers at Mazda designed the new MX-5 to be lighter, particularly with the ND generation model and is using the SkyActiv technology that is also available in all the other models.

And now it's your chance to see the all-new MX-5 in the UK for the first time. Mazda is the featured marque for the Festival of Speed this year, which means it owns the huge, famous sculpture outside Goodwood House over the course of the Festival, so you might well se a couple of MX-5s soaring towards the clouds, but failing that (and the wraps don't come off the sculpture until the Thursday of the Festival), head to Mazda's stand and the Stableyard to the left of the house, where you can see how the MX-5 is inspiring art and music.