A quick sketch of a car I’d like to see updated…
I’m pretty sure that this was one of the cars upon which the Miata (Mazda MX5) was based – but, although I love the Miata, it lacks the hairy chested brutishness of the TR6… and thus, this offering…
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Caught in my headlights 
The Miata was really based on an MGB, including the exhaust note!
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You guys are both wrong. The Miata was based on the lotus elan. Just by looking at the body one can easy see very similar resemblances in body lines. The engine is a similar dohc twin cam which Mazda took ideas from blue prints of lotus in the early 90’s when they first designed it’s Mx5. There’s a BBC documentary on you-tube that talks about the rebirth of the “british sports car” heres another video on this (http://mindovermotor.com/2012/08/10/car-driver-lotus-elan-vs-mazda-mx5). I can’t find the BBC video but here’s on excerpt from car and driver.
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Elan? Yeah. But MG too. And the TR’s – 250, 4, 6, and spit…
I was somewhat loose in my attribution of the Miata to the TR6 – I don’t believe that the Miata was based upon any one car – it was based upon the British Light Car ethic – and all the cars listed above fall within that oeuvre. I have read various claims that suggest that one car or another was the direct inspiration for the Miata, but these, as far as I’m concerned, are opinions, as I have never actually heard anything from the designers of the car…
The people at Mazda were remarkably clever; they re-invented a “class”… (name another car like it in the late 80s) – but to suggest that that was based upon a single car is to suggest that Mazda attempted to do what loads of other car manufacturers are doing presently – re-inventing their past (“Mini” [note quotes, as there is nothing”Mini” about it] Beetle, Fiat 500, etc, ad nauseum…). Mazda didn’t copy a single car – they were inspired by an ethic – and the Miata is the perfect expression of this. It’s not quite a re-design of the Elan – or the MGB – or the TR4, 6 or spit – or the Fiat 124 for that matter….
Which – think – makes us all right… 🙂
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