Land of the free, home of the punchy MX-5

Although the MX-5 is an easily modifiable car, a good base certainly doesn’t go amiss when creating one’s dream car. In the UK we are treated to a series of interior trim and exterior specifications on the ND and have seen some very tasty combinations driving around on the road. From SE up to Sport Nav there are a range of ways to make your pocket rocket truly your own, however the options available across the pond are far more enticing.

In the UK the list of extras stretches up to the RF Launch edition which wears BBS rims, Recaro seats, and a strut brace, add on some aero bits and that’s about what you can get – likewise with the icon for the Roadster. Looking at the newly launched Z Sport, it certainly brings some variety to the table, but from factory we haven’t seen too many special editions or other ways to customise an ND.

Jet to America and Mazda USA offer some more scope to personalise your ND to your tastes. On their website they offer three spec levels: Sport, Club and Grand Touring. Sport being the most basic, and Grand Touring being the soft, comfortable specification, suitable for covering many miles in the land of the free. But it’s the Club package we’re interested in, the Redditors among you will have noticed some very punchy examples coming from the US, and most of these are born from the Club pack.

Iif you weren’t already aware, the U.S market does away with the 1.5L unit. For all of the 1.5’s revvy goodness it’s 2.0 or GTFO in the States, and the Club in manual is the equivalent of our range topping 2.0 Sport Nav cars. A good place to start. It’s not the base that we are so enamoured with, although a strut brace, Bilsteins and fierce aero bits help. It’s what you can add to the Club package that makes the Yankee car so very appealing.

A quick play on the U.S. configurator reveals the Brembo/BBS pack and the Recaro Brembo/BBS pack – no prizes for guessing what you get with these. To have a look at the best we could come up with we specced a money no object MX-5 to see what we could fit under the skin, the results are below.

We went for the 2.0 Club package in optional Machine Grey metallic to contrast the black roof, mirrors and aero, also because the ND looks savage in this exterior trim. Inside was pure indulgence with the leather option ticked. Then came the moment to spec the Brembo/BBS package, not a cheap option at $3,770 but certainly worth it to create one mean looking roadster.

In total our specced up ND Club with the Brembo/BBS package came to $34,540 or a touch over £25,000 in Brexit.

The variety in models and packages seems appropriate to the U.S. market, with a variety in terrain and wide open roads there is a real need for the variety in MX-5s that they have. Over here it seems the populous is glad of a smaller and more rev happy engine in the 1.5L unit so we wouldn’t trade that. We would however love to see a Brembo/BBS type package from the kind folks at Mazda UK.

There’s loads of discussion about the ND on our forum so take a look HERE. Maybe you’d like to talk to Mazda UK? They’ll be at our Spring Rally with some of their fantastic stock, book tickets HERE.