09/08/2026
Picture yourself in 2006, checking the mailbox, and there it is: the next Miata.
Open it up and the first thing you notice is how different this one looks from the car before it. Wider stance. Smoother lines. A car with real curves where the NB had angles. Mazda had spent ten years building a reputation on keeping things small and simple, and here they were making the case for something bigger.
The brochure backs it up with specifics. A six-speed manual, standard for the first time. A folding hardtop you could put up or down at a stoplight. More weight, but enough extra power that Mazda could still promise a quicker lap than the car it replaced.
Enthusiasts argued about this one at the time. Some called it the moment the Miata stopped being a Miata. Others pointed out that it still had rear-wheel drive, a manual gearbox, and a top that came off, which was really the whole point to begin with.
Two decades on, the NC has its own following, its own tuning scene, its own reason people seek one out over the earlier cars.
If this brochure had shown up in your mailbox in 2006, would you have trusted Mazda to grow the car, or gone looking for a used NB instead?
Source: https://www.miata.net/faq/brochures/
