At 2313 lbs in U.S.-spec Club trim, the Mazda Miata is one of the lightest cars you can buy today. And if Mazda's engineers have their way, it's going to get a whole lot lighter.

We've known since last year that Mazda probably wouldn't make a more powerful Miata like the turbocharged 2004-2005 Mazdaspeed Miata, but according to David Coleman, lead development engineer for the U.S.-spec Miata, the company's focus is purely on making the Miata lighter, not more powerful.

"[A turbocharger] really doesn't fit in with the ethos of that car," Coleman said in an interview with Road & Track. "There's plenty of room to try to make the car lighter and better that way."

As for how or when we might see an even lighter version of the Miata, Coleman said that the details are all still very much up in the air. "We honestly don't know how, but the long-term plan for the car is to keep taking weight off somehow—hoping we'll find the technology to do that at a reasonable cost," he said.

"It could be that we just figure out a way to make all the cars lighter," he continued. "Next time you see a facelift, it could come with a haircut and a shave too."

Chassis of the 2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata Mazda

In speaking to Coleman, it is abundantly clear that Mazda has a very specific idea of what the ND Miata should be. He told R&T that Mazda tried to recapture the spirit of the very first 1.6-liter Miata, which was low-powered but fun to drive thanks to a very light chassis. More power is an easy solution for more speed, but it doesn't jibe with this Miata's philosophy.

Nobuhiro Yamamoto, Project Manager for the MX-5, echoed Coleman's statements in an interview at the New York Auto Show earlier this year.

"We're trying to give customers 'fun to drive,' and we don't necessarily see an increase in power making a car more fun to drive," Yamamoto said. "It's more effective for us, from a fun to drive point of view, to make the car lighter. More power means you need bigger tires, bigger tires means you need bigger brakes, bigger brakes means you need more rigidity of the car, which means it makes the car heavier. It's not the direction people want. Why would we go this direction?"

Coleman didn't have anything to add when I asked him if we could expect a track-focused, stripped-out Miata for the street (as opposed to the Global MX-5 Cup, a Miata race car that can't be registered for street use). But either way, an even lighter street Miata is certainly something we can get behind. Lotus founder Colin Chapman would no doubt be proud of Mazda's efforts.

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