Light, Affordable, And Fun: Everything We Know About The New Mazda Miata

Believe it or not, the current Mazda MX-5 Miata has been on sale for a full decade. The small roadster enjoys nearly unheard-of sales success despite its long lifespan. That is in no small part due to the Miata's superb, nearly unparalleled driving dynamics. Cars twice the price with four times the horsepower don't drive nearly as well as the Miata.

To say the least, Mazda has its work cut out for it. The brand knows it, and there's an incredibly tough-to-predict regulatory climate to navigate in order to make the next Miata a success. For one, Mazda will certainly need to navigate new, more stringent emissions regulations if not in America, then in Europe, where these regulations have already led to the demise of the Miata's 2.0-liter engine. These same regulations will make an essential part of the Miata experience, its manual transmission, extremely difficult to get right, and they'll likely also make the small car heavier. Yet Mazda has given every indication that the brand intends to push forward with a small, light, stick-shift roadster to outdo the current ND-generation car.

Synthetic Fuels Could Provide Hope

Some Mazda executives, like the brand's European R&D head, Christian Schultze, have said previously that synthetic fuels could be a godsend for the upcoming Mazda Miata. The next-generation sports car faces a fundamental problem: hybridization is necessary for many gas engines to survive modern emissions regulations, but the concept is the enemy of the sports car experience. Synthetic gas is Occam's Razor, the simplest, most straightforward, obvious solution. A gas engine that doesn't burn gas lets the Miata keep its lightweight packaging intact while still delivering on a near-zero emissions output.

"The simplest way to reduce the MX-5's emissions is to use synthetic fuels. That's the short answer, really. If you look at the technical reality, synthetic, CO2-neutral fuel allows you to continue using the existing combustion engine without having to completely overhaul the car's concept. For a model like the MX-5, which relies so heavily on lightweight construction, balance, and mechanical purity, that's a very logical route," he told AutoRAI.

Lightweight Over All: A Promise Is Made

Speaking with GoAuto, Mazda's General Manager of Global Sales and Marketing, Manabu Osuga, has said the brand has a hard target in sight for the upcoming Miata's curb weight. It's a mighty ambitious one: in North America, the current ND Miata with a soft top weighs just 2,366 pounds. Osuga says the brand wants to shave yet more weight from that figure: "I can tell you that we are sticking with [the design for] a car that will be under one ton of weight … employing our ‘gram strategy' as we did with the current series." The math works out to a 2,204-pound Miata. Whether that comes to pass will have to wait for the day the Miata debuts.

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Mazda Plans To Keep The Miata's DNA

Mazda is deep into developing the next-generation Miata, and it's taking input from all over the globe. In an interview with Motor 1, the brand's Italian Managing Director, Roberto Pietrantonio, said the company is fortunate to have "extremely engaged customer groups that provided valuable feedback to our engineers." Mazda likely plans to sell the ND in as many markets as possible, hinted the director: "Europe, Italy, Germany, and the UK are among the most important markets for the MX-5." The company also collects structured data during these meetings, but one constant remains: "the desire to preserve the car's DNA," said Pietrantonio.

As for when the new Miata will arrive, it's still a ways off. The brand's current Miata is still selling strong despite a decade on sale, and there's no reason to rush into a new model when emissions regulations could change the game at the drop of a hat. The brand appears to be working on a few powertrain options, just in case, but we shouldn't expect the new Miata before the end of the decade.

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This story was originally published May 31, 2026 at 9:00 AM.