There’s comfort in the latest Miata—sorry, MX-5 Miata. It’s not the comfort of plush leather seats, a soft ride, or opera windows. It’s the comfort of knowing that even in its fourth generation, Mazda’s two-seat roadster steadfastly remains a Miata.

The MX-5 is sui generis partly because of its size and the toylike character that size confers. As the world around it grows—cars are bigger, mediums are larger, waistlines are rounder, SUVs still exist—the defiant Miata retains roughly the same dimensions of the 1990 original. What did you look like a quarter-century ago?

More impressive, the new MX-5 has actually slimmed down a bit from the previous, third-generation car. It has a shorter wheelbase and is nearly a half-inch lower.

But if the car looks and feels trim, it seems bigger inside. Cabin space is better conceived and allotted than before, the seat reclines farther, and there’s a tad more headroom. The steering wheel tilts but doesn’t telescope, the sills are slightly higher, and the seats are lower by nearly an inch. In the last Miata, a high seat and low doors gave the driver the impression that he was on top of the car instead of in it.

Despite the deeper seating position, forward visibility is excellent. The hood is more than an inch lower than before—thanks to an engine set half an inch farther back and a lower-profile oil pan that brings the engine down by half an inch—while tall fender creases make the car easy to place on the road. Revving under our right-hand-drive test car’s plunging hoodline is a 1.5-liter four-cylinder direct-injection gasoline engine that will be standard in the rest of the world. The little four makes 129 horsepower at 7000 rpm and 111 lb-ft of torque at 4800 rpm. Willing and happy to rev to its 7500-rpm redline, the 1.5-liter builds power steadily and never emits a coarse tone. Great shifters are a Miata tradition, one that continues here: A six-speed with delightfully short throws is seemingly drawn into each cog. First gear is good for 36 mph, second redlines at 61 mph, and third goes to 88 mph (per our observations of the speedometer, at least). With the 1.5-liter engine, we estimate a zero-to-60-mph run takes just over seven seconds.

The U.S. version is likely to be a bit quicker. We’ll be skipping the turbine-smooth 1.5-liter engine in favor of a 2.0-liter version similar to the one in the CX-5. Adapted for the MX-5’s longitudinal orientation, the 2.0-liter will get a different intake manifold, exhaust system, and cylinder head. Mazda is as tight-lipped as the NSA when it comes to the 2.0-liter, but we at least got officials to divulge that it will have 155 horsepower and 148 lb-ft of torque when the American Miata arrives this summer. (The specification panel for this story covers the 2.0-liter, U.S.-spec version of the car.)

The 1.5-liter cars we drove in Spain were equipped with 16-inch wheels wearing 195/50R-16 Yokohama Advan Sport V105 tires. Thus equipped, grip is excellent and the tires don’t squeal, no matter how hard you pound their little faces into the asphalt. And when the grip goes, the MX-5 slides steadily and is easy to catch thanks in part to its low mass. The highly boosted steering is quick and rewards a light touch, all of which adds to an impression of extreme smallness.

Mazda engineers tell us that they’ve purposely built a bit of initial compliance into the suspension to give the driver an awareness of load transfer during cornering. What that means: When you turn the wheel, the body squirms slightly before taking a set. Eliminating the squirm would make the car tighter, more precise, and more responsive to steering inputs. We’d like to see such a tweak for the—fingers crossed—Mazdaspeed version.

The U.S. car will arrive with 17-inch wheels and 205/45R-17 tires. Maybe the plus-sizing is necessary because 16s are the new 13s, or maybe it’s because our MX-5 will get slightly larger brakes that won’t fit inside the 16-inch wheels. That wider rubber will be working through a control-arm front suspension and a multilink rear suspension.

Weight is a claimed 2200 pounds for the 1.5-liter car, but there’s no news on the mass front for the American-spec version. Historical note: The 1990 Miata we tested with optional A/C and power steering weighed 2210 pounds. To keep off the fat in the new car, Mazda uses aluminum more extensively than before in the chassis. The previous Miata had an aluminum hood, trunklid, center frame brace, and suspension arms. In addition to those lightweight pieces, the new MX-5 uses aluminum for the front fenders, front knuckles, convertible-top supports, rear bulkhead and roll hoops, and front and rear bumper supports. The center of gravity drops by nearly a quarter-inch. We’re going to predict that our U.S. version will weigh in at less than 2400 pounds. (These weight-saving measures should carry over to the Fiat version of this car, which Mazda will assemble in Hiroshima alongside the MX-5, as well as the recently unveiled Cup racing version.)

Since the Miata’s arrival 26 years ago, sports cars have slowly grown into giants. Bigger cars may have bigger engines, they may carry passengers more comfortably, and they might sell better in China (and everywhere else for that matter), but it’s gratifying to know that the Miata continues to stay true to the original, which itself stayed true to the Lotus Elan. It’s still a small sports car. It’s still big fun. It’s still a toy. Best of all, it still makes us happy.

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