Sporty summer roadsters go head-to head: Mazda MX-5 vs Fiat 124 Spider

Two little roadsters, with plenty of similarities beneath the surface: which is best on a track?
Rob Adams28 February 2017

If you’re a track day regular, you’ll be well aware of just how popular the Mazda MX-5 is. Almost certainly, they won’t be the fastest cars of the day, but their drivers will be the ones wearing the biggest grins at the end of it all. Particularly as they won’t be facing expensive bills to put right all the bits they’ve worn out.

The MX-5 is a beauty, all low weight, zingy engines, utterly predictable handling and the sort of hero-worship among its loyalists that leaves you in little doubt as to why it’s the best-selling roadster the world has ever seen.

So where else for Fiat to turn when it needed a partner to help build it a new roadster interpretation of the classic 124 Spider? Why, Mazda, of course. This isn’t simply a rebadged special, fortunately. The turbo engines are Fiat’s, as are all the body panels and much of the reinterpreted suspension tuning.

See it as a different take on the Mazda MX-5, one that could prove to be the car’s sternest challenger yet. And, following tradition, we naturally decided to take the competition to the circuit, to see which is best.

In the black corner is a 160hp Mazda MX-5 Sport Recaro; in the white corner, a regular 140hp Fiat 124 Spider. Two roadsters, two evangelists, one racetrack, and only one winner. Question is, which will it be? Watch the video and find out.

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