Design Notes: Exterior

This is subjective, of course, but to me the Miata’s exterior stylists were a little too influenced by the Corvette; the original Miata was shaped like a used bar of soap. I still cling to that as the aesthetic ideal; it was the original Miata’s spiritual similarity to old British roadsters that initially drew my eye.

Design Notes: Interior/UX

This is where we’ll focus the majority of this article. Being a driver-oriented car, the interior of the MX-5 Miata feels like a cockpit. There’s a lot to recommend about its interior design, and a few areas that could benefit from some changes. This is not necessarily specific to the Miata, but to many cars of this ilk.

First off I love how minimalist the dash is. From left to right it’s just fuel gauge/temperature, tachometer, speedometer. (And although these look like analog dials, they’re actually digital screens.) The fuel gauge tells you how many miles are left in the tank and has the helpful arrow next to the pump symbol letting you know which side the fuel door is on. There’s also a paint/materials trick the designers have pulled off, and which I’ll get into later, that for me at least, transforms the Miata’s interior into art.

The center console hosts the media/nav screen. Syncing your phone is straightforward, and you can then opt for the screen to display not just the navigation, but whatever song or podcast you’re listening to. It’s a touchscreen, but can also be controlled by a knob elsewhere that we’ll get to in a moment. To the left of the screen is the start button, as the car has an RF fob and starting it requires no key.

Someone called me while I was on the road and it automatically displayed the number/contact on the screen. I was surprised to hear the person’s voice coming from behind me, and it wasn’t until the next rest stop that I noticed there are speakers built into the headrest. This makes good sense given that you’ll occasionally have the top down. The sound, by the way, is delivered via a nine-speaker Bose system that comes standard in the Club and Grand Touring levels of trim; the base Sport level only comes with a six-speaker system of unmentioned origin, so if you want Bose quality with the Sport you’d have to go aftermarket and pay retail.

Below the screen are the three climate control dials. I feel the designers took some time to think these through, and I dug:

- The tactility of the knurled (well, molded faux-knurled) edges.

- How the center of each dial itself is a large button (A/C on/off, recirculating, rear defroster). It’s my habit whenever I drive into a tunnel to hit the recirculating button, and I liked having that big fat target.

- The orange indicator doesn’t look great in the photos, but at a glance is easily discernible, particularly at night.

Overall these large dials and buttons are quick/easy to manipulate while at speed, which is exactly what you want. In some other ZipCars I’ve had recently there is a bit of fussing required. With the exception of the icons on the furthermost dial, which were hard for me to see at speed, (though I suppose an actual owner/everyday driver of the car would have them memorized) I feel Mazda’s designers got these often-overlooked little details right. Clean, simple, functional design.

Below the climate control dials are the switch to activate the power retractable targa top, and the icons make it perfectly clear which direction is which.

To the right, controls for the heated seats. Below that, two USB ports for charging, a nice touch, and an AUX port. This would be handy if, say, your passenger wanted to quickly play you something from their device but didn’t feel like syncing it (or didn’t have Bluetooth).

The leather-wrapped shift knob is of course the thing you interact with the most after the steering wheel, and I’m one of those purists who feels the thing should be a sphere, like this, and not some experimental joystick shape. I’m glad Mazda’s designers agree.

Aft of the stick you see this large knob and behind that, a smaller one. The large knob is to control the menu prompts on the screen; you rotate it to move left or right and press down on it to select/confirm. The good thing about this knob is that you can easily locate it with your right hand without taking your eyes off the road, and it was easy to memorize the three buttons north of it–music/podcasts, home screen, nav–to toggle between them as needed.

The bad thing about this knob is that, although I was certain my elbow was well clear of it, I accidentally activated the knob or button several times, causing the nav screen to disappear. This was a minor annoyance and easily rectified by no-look pressing the NAV button at top right to bring the screen up, but it happened enough times that I wondered if it would grow irritating over time.

Aft of the large knob is a smaller knob that can be used to control the volume, or pressed down for instant mute. This smaller knob is a bit awkward to access; while you can still get to it without looking, its rearward position means you must lift your elbow and reach backwards, whereas the larger knob is easy to grab without shifting position. It’s a minor gripe but I found this motion awkward.

I hunted about on the steering wheel, certain there’d be another volume control on there, and I was right:

However, Mazda’s designers need to work on this button, which is a three-way rocker switch. It might’ve been my lack of familiarity with the car, but often when trying to raise or lower the volume, I accidentally hit the voice command button, which then stopped the music to have the car asking me, in essence, what I wanted to tell it. And I didn’t want to tell it anything.

The cupholders are another reason why I say, in addition to the fun of driving it that I mentioned in Part 1, this is a car for the driver. The only cupholder within reach of the driver while the car is moving is this one.

It intrudes a bit on the passenger legroom.

Between the two seats, towards the rear of the car, is where a small lockable glovebox can be found.

This glovebox has a second cupholder in front of it. I assume this is for the passenger, as this spot is literally impossible for the driver to reach while driving the car.

Also, placing a drink in it precludes the glovebox from being opened. This isn’t a huge deal, as the location of the glovebox means the driver can’t access it whilst in transit anyway, but it seemed like an odd design choice to me. In fairness to Mazda’s designers, I can’t think of where else the cupholders could possibly go in the cockpit.

For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what this panel that looks like a CD drawer was. I pressed the button and nothing happened. In retrospect, my guess is that it retracts the rear windscreen aft of the seats when the targa top is hidden away.

The vents to either side of the steering wheel, as well as the one to the far right, are precisely the way vents should be designed: You grab the knob at the center and direct it precisely where you want it to go. I hate the kinds of vents with louvers and a dial, as you shouldn’t have to interface with two things to achieve one motion.

One killer feature that I really dig is a stylistic one. The Miata’s designers carried the exterior color over to the interior of the car with these metallic panels, which look like elegantly-shaped sheet metal.

They aren’t actually metal, of course, but plastic, for safety reasons; but the finish on them has unbelievable fidelity. It makes you feel like you’re sitting in a Spitfire and I enjoy, visually, how the designers pulled off this line-blurring between the exterior and interior of the car. It reinforces the fact that the car’s roots are in those British roadsters of yore.

Something those of you considering a Miata might be wondering is: Ought I go for the RF or the softtop convertible?

With both the RF and the softtop in the closed positions, you’re dealing with a driver’s side blind-spot; when I instinctively glanced over my left shoulder prior to sliding into the left lane, I was met with zero visibility courtesy of the chunky C-pillar. Mazda’s designers have mitigated this somewhat with a blind-spot indicator on the driver’s mirror (an orange arrow illuminates when another car’s in the pocket). But with the softtop, you have the option of dropping the top entirely and having unobstructed vision. Retract the targa top on the RF and the C-pillar doesn’t move.

That being said, if presented with this choice, weather would probably be my main concern. If I lived in California I’d go softtop all the way. If I lived somewhere with harsh winters, I’d pick the RF, as nothing is less fun that freezing in a roof-up convertible.

Of course, what I’d really recommend you do if trying to choose is to go to a dealership and test drive them–both of them. Because if you love to drive, either of these is going to put a smile on your face, and you might as well double up!

http://www.core77.com/posts/77687/A-Review-of-the-Mazda-MX-5-Miata-RT-Part-2